


Miles to Go

by road_not_taken



Category: Homeland
Genre: Alternate Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-10-29 16:35:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10857870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/road_not_taken/pseuds/road_not_taken
Summary: A rewrite/reimagining of Season 6 splitting off after the beginning of 6.03.Takes place after the 6.02 "Why" and the post-nightmare-worst-hug-in-history of 6.03.  After that, I threw mostly everything else out.  No presidential plots, no Sekou.  I was much more interested in telling the returning soldier story and how Carrie and Quinn figure things out.





	1. Chapter 1

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep.

– Robert Frost 

 

She knocked on the door lightly. “Quinn?”

No response.

It was her door. Her house. Did she really need to knock on her own door? To her own basement apartment? She knocked louder. “Quinn? Are you awake?” Was he awake? Christ. If he wasn’t, he would be if she was banging on the door. She sighed, debating for a moment, the need to give him space, privacy—yes, she had to knock if she ever intended on him believing it was his space. She rested her head on the door for a minute before testing the knob. It was open. She turned the knob, pushing it open slowly. “Quinn?” she said quieter, in case he was really sleeping. He wasn’t on the stairs so she made her way down. It was seriously dark down here, only one light on in the corner. He was sitting in the chair next to the bed, looking off, seemingly at nothing. He did that a lot. He looked… he looked lost. Tired. In pain.

“You look like shit. Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He wasn’t looking at her.

She knew she needed to back off, that the hovering she’d done in the beginning did nothing to improve his mood, or their interactions, but it didn’t stop her lips from pursing or the frustrated deep breath she let out. The basement was… well, it was kind of a dismal place. It didn’t have to be; a previous renter had actually made it quite livable and nice, but… Quinn’s moods did little to improve the environment. It was like it kind of took on his condition. He was drowning in it.

This was awkward. She wasn’t making it less awkward because she really didn’t know what the fuck to say, and he wasn’t trying in the least. She took a deep breath again and tried to be patient. “So… what happened this morning…”

“We don’t need to t-talk about it. It was my…” he was struggling to come up with the word. She really hated to watch him struggle. “…mistake,” he finally got out.

She nodded—more to herself than to him—he still refused to meet her eyes. She thought seriously about telling him he didn’t need to be embarrassed about it—that it wasn’t a rejection, but just… not good timing, but she figured he would find that even more insulting and it wasn’t worth it right now when he wasn’t really listening to her. It wasn’t even… it wasn’t like she hadn’t sat with him, held onto him other nights while he fought his way out of dreams. It was just one moment. One misstep. She changed tactics. “Do you wanna come up for dinner? I know Franny would love it.” Franny would love it? The fuck did she say that for? She was terrible at this. Why was she so terrible at talking to him? At telling him anything? Fuck. Had it always been this hard? Was she making it hard?

His head jerked slightly in her direction—playing the Franny card was dirty, but she’d use what she could to get through to him. She added, “ _I’d_ like it. If you came up for dinner. Will you join us?”

It was an olive branch. She was trying.

It took him an inordinate amount of time to answer, and she thought he wasn’t going to. She was halfway turned to just go back upstairs when he asked quietly, “What’s for dinner?”

“I was thinking spaghetti. It’s fast and I won’t have to coerce Franny into eating it.”

He nodded. “Ok.”

She’d take ‘Ok.’ It was better than a coffee mug through the window.

*****

He was quiet at dinner, quieter than he was normally when Franny was around. Blissfully she didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t seem to mind. It wasn’t like he was being impolite. He smiled at Franny’s chattering to him (she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile). It was funny this relationship her daughter was forging with Quinn—or maybe it wasn’t funny at all. It didn’t matter to Franny that he wasn’t the Quinn she herself had known before. It didn’t matter to Franny that he had the limp, or that he couldn’t express himself in the way he had before. Franny didn’t know a ‘before.’ She accepted Quinn just as he was. Maybe that was her problem.

It took her a second to realize that Franny was looking at her and expecting an answer to a question she missed. “I’m sorry, sweetie, what?”

“Why do you call Peter ‘Quinn,’ mommy?”

It wasn’t like he was gone—he was in there every time he smiled at Franny, every time he responded to her endless questions and comments, and sometimes when his eyes flicked to meet hers before quickly looking away—which he just did. Guess he wasn’t going to field this one.

“Quinn is Peter’s last name.”

“But he doesn’t call you by your last name.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Always _Carrie_. “Um… well,” she blew out a breath. Pretty sure he was enjoying this. “Where we worked it was just kind of, well, a lot of people were known by their last names.” Were they?

“Why?”

Jesus. Why? _Why? Why?_ She cleared her throat, mostly because the lump that was suddenly forming there was making it hard to get anything out that wasn’t going to be a sob. She wondered how long that word would hit her like this. The immediate flashback she had every time the echo of that word rang out. The blank look on his face, the confusion, the genuine vacancy that he _really_ did. not. know. It ripped her apart. How little he must think of himself.

“I was a soldier before. In the military everyone is known by their last name. It just kind of stuck, I think.”

She greatly appreciated the save. And the soft way he was looking at her daughter. At the same time, he looked so tired. Weary.

“Franny, why don’t you pick out a movie for us to watch, huh?”

“Any movie?”

“Any movie.” She nodded. “Put your PJs on while I clean up and then we’ll watch it, ok?”

She practically launched herself off of her chair. She got about halfway down the hallway before she did a 180-and was right back by the table. “Are you going to watch with us, Peter?” She didn’t wait for an answer before adding, “Can I call you Quinn like mommy?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

And she was gone again.

Quinn turned his gaze back on her—his eyes were different sometimes now, less focused, more jumpy, but right now they were locked on her. She couldn’t read what it meant. She used to think she was good at that; having entire conversations with him without ever uttering a word.

“T-thanks for dinner,” he said quietly, using the table for leverage to stand.

“You’re welcome to watch the movie with us. Offer still stands.” She wasn’t sure if he needed the extra confirmation that it was ok with her, but she wanted to make it clear.

He wavered slightly, but shook his head. “Another night. Tell Franny I’m sorry I missed it.”

She nodded. “Ok.” And watched him shuffle back to the basement stairs. It was progress he had dinner with them. She didn’t want to push more, but she had the nagging suspicion that something else was up with him.

Franny came bounding down the stairs long before she even started clearing the table, still lost in her thoughts. She looked around the kitchen. “Isn’t Quinn watching the movie with us?”

“Not tonight, Franny.”

“But I picked _Sword in the Stone_! I think he’d really like it.”

“He’s pretty tired tonight,” she told Franny. “He’ll watch with us another night, ok?”

She sighed, pouting for a second before moving over to the living room and getting the movie started.

*****

Franny was out halfway through _That’s What Makes the World Go ‘Round._ After depositing her in bed, and tidying up for what seemed like the millionth time, she found herself back in the kitchen, mindlessly wiping at the same spot on the counter while staring at the basement door.

_Left and right_

_Like day and night_

_That’s what makes the world go round_

_To and fro_

_Stop and go_

_That’s what makes the world go round_

_Don’t just wait_

_And trust to fate_

_And say, that’s how it’s meant to be_

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Fucking Walt Disney – how ridiculous was she being right now?

He was always so confident in her abilities, despite the thousands of times he’d told her to pull back, to stop whatever fucking crazy shit was going to pull next. How he wanted to leave so many years ago but agreed to help her anyway—only because she asked him. _Sure, Carrie. Whatever you need._ What the fuck did he need? What had she done for his needs? When he was done after Sandy died and just wanted it to be over and she hauled him back in again. Y _ou’re the hardest person in the world to say no to?_

Push and pull – that’s what she did to him a lot. Push him where she needed him, and pull him back when she needed him, too. And he just let her. Even in his times of defiance and principle, in the end, he let her.

And now, leaving him down in the basement like he was some fucking dirty secret just seemed like the worst possible scenario she could imagine. Was he ever not in her basement?

She threw the rag in the sink and moved back to the door. She knocked tentatively, just one rap, quiet. Typically, there was no response but the door was still open. She let herself in again.

“Quinn?”

He was right back where she’d found him before: one light on in the corner, sitting in the chair by the bed. His eyes were unfocused, staring off again.

“Hey,” she said gently, touching his arm.

He jerked slightly, like he hadn’t really even noticed she approached. His head dropped a little, tilted in her direction; all the acknowledgement she was going to get apparently. She sat on the edge of the bed, surveying the man in front of her. He had dark circles under his eyes. Why hadn’t she noticed that upstairs? Had they been there all along?

“Quinn, you look really, really tired. Maybe you should lie down.” Maybe was a good word, right? Not hovering, not ordering, just suggesting.

“D-don’t want to s-sleep.”

Carrie tilted her head at that—not expecting that response. It totally made sense now, though. She sighed. “Are you…” she didn’t want to use the word _afraid_ , “worried about having another nightmare?”

He nodded slowly. She should have said more last night. Made him understand instead of running away again.

She regarded him for a few minutes; his posture, the way the features on his face were tight, his body tense. It wasn’t just the fear of a nightmare. “Did you take your pill?”

A mild annoyance flashed across his face, but it was gone almost as fast, replaced with that bone-settled weariness again. “Yes,” he said quietly, his fingers pressing against his temple.

She tilted her head. “Does your head hurt?”

“Just a headache.”

“Bad one?”

“They’re all bad.”

Wait, what? “You get them a lot?”

He shook his head sluggishly, the exhaustion evident.

She’d seen him every day for almost a year—how did she not know this? “Do you have something for it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

She was up immediately, taking the stairs two at a time and looking over the pill bottles that still littered the counter. She was so fucking stupid—she’d been so preoccupied with making sure he took the seizure medication, she hadn’t really focused on any of the other meds. She told herself she was going to sort them out daily, but never had. She found one that specified for headaches and grabbed a glass of water. She held both out to him. God everything he was doing was sluggish. Was that normal? Had she not noticed? Was she so preoccupied all the goddamn time that she always failed to see what was three feet in front of her?

She started noticing other things—maybe that’s why he always had it so dark down here, maybe that’s why he didn’t come up a lot of nights, maybe that’s why he retreated down here to this stupid fucking basement because she wasn’t paying enough attention even though he was living under her goddamned nose. It was cold down in here in the basement.

“Come upstairs,” she said, louder than she meant to.

“It’s fine.”

No, actually it wasn’t fine at all. Nothing about this had been fine. “I don’t want you to sit down here all night by yourself. Especially not with that headache. Please come upstairs.” Polite requests would go over better, yes? She said ‘please!’

“Carrie…”

She probably should have left out the headache bit. He’d think she was being overbearing again. That the only reason was his impairment.

“Either you come up or I stay down here. Your choice. I can’t hear Franny.”

All the fight he had left disappeared in a rush.

She held out her hand, knowing she’d won. He grabbed it and allowed her to help him out of the chair, dropping her hand after that. Stairs took him a long time when he wasn’t this plainly tired. This was like his ankles had weights tied to them. She steered him towards the couch, where they sat awkwardly on opposite sides. Why did they make this so hard on each other? “Do you wanna talk about the dreams?” she finally offered after a few moments of silence.

She wondered sometimes where he went in his head when he did this far-off looking thing. It was like a Quinn-fugue. She hoped it was a happier retreat than the dark headspace of his dreams. She suspected it wasn’t.

“No,” he said after a beat, closing the door on that subject.

“You have to sleep eventually.”

“I don’t actually.”

“Quinn.”

“Carrie.”

She smiled to herself. Jerk. “Should I make some coffee?”

He turned to look at her. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”

“Why? You won’t sleep. Why should I?”

“Because you have Franny. And she needs a… functional mother. She doesn’t need a functional me.” Bastard obviously could use it, too.

“Can you sleep if I stay with you?”

He was genuinely surprised by her question. His mouth did that whole open-close-open-close again thing.

“Can we try?” she added after he didn’t really respond. She didn’t give him enough time to think about it, standing and holding her hand out again. “C’mon.”

He sat there staring at her outstretched hand, finally dragging his line of sight to her face. She smiled softly, making the motion with her hand. “Seriously, Quinn. C’mon.”

He wanted to; she could see that much. But she could also see a lot of other things: uncertainty, disbelief, questioning, suspicion, maybe distrust even. She could see the visual assault of his emotions and senses—warring with trying to protect himself and wanting to believe what she was offering was real.

He had serious reservations. That was also probably her fault. They really needed to have several long conversations–conversations she knew were going to need to start with her. She owed him explanations. He’d never been anything but honest really. And he’d never really bothered protecting himself from her before.

It occurred to her suddenly that she was offering him the idea of sleeping in her bed when she’d stopped his…she didn’t really know what to call what happened this morning. Romantic advances? Shit, she was stupid. And she was probably confusing the hell out of him. She didn’t want to send mixed signals either. He needed her to be clear right now.

She dropped her hand and sat back down on the couch, closer to him. “Why don’t you crash here for a while? I’ll stick around for—as long as you want.” Impulsivity was her strong suit. He didn’t need that right now. More thinking, less doing whatever the first thing that came into her mind was.

She couldn’t read was he was thinking. The stroke made it much harder to read what she could before. Emotions were easy; he couldn’t hide those from his face. Maybe his thoughts were jumbled. It was harder for him to express himself. Maybe—Christ. “Will you just fucking lie down here?” So patience— _not_ her strong suit, but sometimes she thought he appreciated that.

He sighed, relenting, and she smiled, knowing she’d won this argument. When he tried to just put his head back, she tsk-ed and pulled him sideways on the couch, moving to make room for his taller frame. Which was how she wound up with his head in her lap. She grabbed a light blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over as much of him as would reach.

His body wasn’t really tense but he wasn’t totally relaxed, either, and she wasn’t sure how to make him relax. This was different—different from their interactions before. She remembered how easily he’d accepted her comfort when he was all hopped up on morphine in Berlin. Maybe that wasn’t the best example; maybe the morphine made him less inhibited. But it meant something—how his head burrowed into her shoulder. Despite his earlier…coldness? That wasn’t really the word for their first meeting in Berlin. Detachment was maybe a better word or jealousy? Bitterness? It wasn’t really any of those things—hurt, he was hurt by the fact she’d started something with Jonas. Yet he dove right back into protecting her, and was just as loyal and reliable as anywhere before their separation. _And reliable. I am extremely reliable_. Was she reliable? Was she reliable for him?

When she thought back to that warehouse in Berlin, it was always with an intensely profound sadness. Not just his injury and what came after, but that moment of comfort he allowed—how long had it been since someone had comforted him? How fucked up and fucking sad was it that it took him bleeding out on a bed to get one moment of consolation? They hadn’t had time to hash out what their respective years had been like—she didn’t imagine two years in Syria had been flush with peace or solace.

She thought about Franny and what she liked; what made her feel safe. Not that he was a child, but comfort was comfort. Which was how one hand wound up on his shoulder while the other was combing through his hair.

His hair was so long now. She didn’t think pre-stroke Quinn would have liked that. He was always very neat—not that he wasn’t neat, really—now that showers were happily a regular thing, it was just… he wasn’t as kempt as he had been. The need for ease in clothing and appearance had replaced any sense of presentation. She was kind of honored (in some weird way) he didn’t feel the need to be as trimmed in front of her. Kind of a you-show-me-yours, I-show-you-mine thing. After all he’d seen plenty of that from her in the mental ward. It was oddly nice to see him do the same.

She looked down and his eyes were closed, his breathing slowing, his body losing some of the tension.

It only lasted a few minutes before he jerked under her hands. She wasn’t sure the cause. He didn’t offer anything, but his eyes remained open again.

“Tell me about the headaches,” she finally said.

“W-what about them?”

“Where are they?”

His features scrunched.

“I mean where in your head.”

He pointed to his temple. “Behind my eye…s’like a…” he blinked, his eyes searching, “a…” he gestured with his hand.

Her eyebrows went up, trying to decipher. She wasn’t sure she should try to help during times like this or not; didn’t know if he’d find it helpful. She wanted to tell him it was ok, but she thought that might also piss him off. There wasn’t an easy answer; struggling wasn’t fun, but she didn’t want to coddle either, being over-helpful wasn’t a good solution she’d found.

“a…” he sighed, getting frustrated, “pick-thing.” He gestured again.

She blinked herself a minute, trying to figure out what he meant. “An ice pick?”

“Yeah!” He smiled slightly.

She smiled back, although, she wasn’t sure that was a happy thing to smile about. Small victories, she guessed? “It’s like an ice pick behind your eye?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he said again, softer, less enthusiastic.

“Did the pill help?”

He thought a minute, like he hadn’t really been considering it. “S-sort of dulls it, I guess.”

“Hmm,” she said, more to herself. She moved her thumb to base of his neck and pressed in.

His shoulders tightened immediately and then released on a groan.

“Fuck.”

She smiled. It wasn’t really what he said; she knew it felt good just with the way he said it. Like it was pure relief.

“Maybe it’s a muscle thing,” she said softly, because he’d closed his eyes again.

“Mmm,” he responded, but without any clear indication he comprehended what she said. She didn’t need him to. She kept it up until his breathing evened out again, making her touch lighter, hoping he’d fall asleep and stay that way for a while.

*****

She woke to him shifting on her lap and realized too late he was dreaming. She reacted well enough to make sure he didn’t launch off of the couch, but not in enough time to stop it entirely.

It was terrifying to see his reaction to the dream, to realize what images he was reliving to elicit such a violent and tangible response. She wrapped her arms around his chest and just dug in, holding on to him and saying over and over in his ear: “Quinn, I’m right here. You’re not there. You’re safe with me. It’s me. You’re ok, Quinn. Easy.”

It didn’t last as long as some of the others he’d had, but they always left him sweaty and scared, and struggling to resurface. Confused.

“Tell me about it,” she said softly, a silent pleading that he’d share it with her while she loosened her grip on him. She should never have shown him the video. Yes, he’d asked, but she should have said no. It was like adding another layer of cruelty to the act, for him to have to watch himself go through it like she had the hundreds of times she’d watched it. She could have spared him that at least—given him that one kindness. It took her a minute to realize she’d said all of that out loud.

“I asked, Carrie.”

“I know, but you didn’t need to see it.”

“I think I did.”

“Well obviously not if you’re having nightmares about it now.”

“I…it’s hard to know what’s real.”

“What do you mean?”

“My dreams feel real…and now, this—” He shook his head, pointing. “Here. When I’m awake feels more like a dream. Colors, everything. Colors flash. And light. And I can’t think. Or I do and I can’t hold onto them. It’s all backward.”

“What did you dream now?”

“I don’t—I saw a man’s face. He had a beard, and he was watching me in the…glass-thing. He was the only one who looked away when it started. I know him, but I can’t…I-I-I don’t know why. I’m not afraid of him.”

“Qasim,” she said immediately. “His name was Qasim—he saved you. He gave you atropine and it kept the gas from killing you. Bought you enough time until I could find you.”

His eyes were moving rapidly, pieces falling into place. “He gave me water.”

“He stopped the attack. He saved everyone.”

“I don’t know what’s real. I can’t trust what I think is real.”

Her chest felt so tight she almost couldn’t breathe. How do you respond to that? How do you tell him it’s going to be ok when that’s the confession he just made? Completely fucked up and still as honest as he can be.

“God, Quinn, I don’t fucking know what to say. I mean, I can tell you—I can tell you what’s real if you have questions.”

“Yeah,” he said, quietly. “Ok.”

She squeezed him lightly. “Try to go back to sleep. We can talk more tomorrow if you want.”

*****

She had an awful crick in her neck in the morning, but it was worth it for the full four hours or so of actual solid sleep he got. She wasn’t sure the couch was the best or most restful place for him to sleep, but there were worse places.

It was still early, but Franny would be getting up soon.

He shifted in her lap, waking slowly.

For some reason something Max had said to her flashed in her mind. _He’s not happy, Carrie._

Typically, she hadn’t really reacted well to his statement—what it really meant. It was obvious he wasn’t happy. But it made her think now—if his reality wasn’t something he could trust, how the fuck was he ever going to be happy? And if part of that reality included her, then he needed to trust her completely if she was going to be the one to tell him what was real. That meant they needed to have at least two more conversations involving truths she’d been avoiding. And it was a risk really—could he trust her if she told him that she bore a fair amount of responsibility for his current state? She couldn’t fuck this up.

“Morning,” she said when she could tell he was fully awake.

“Hey,” he breathed out.

She needed some time to formulate what she was going to say to him. She’d had a fucking year, though—how could she not have been prepared already? Avoidance! Pay no attention to that huge pink elephant in the room! That’s how! She was awesome at shoving shit away and down and just trucking on as if everything was fine.

It wasn’t exactly awkward, but she could tell he had no idea what to say, so she made it easy on him while she helped him sit up. “I was thinking pancakes for breakfast. Thoughts?”

He breathed out a sigh, relieved. “Sounds good.”

“You have plans today?”

The noise he made was something between a laugh and a scoff, but amused, not annoyed with her question. “Schedule’s pretty clear.”

“I was thinking about taking Franny to the park later. Would that be something you’d like to join us for?”

She was quiet while he thought about it, processed it. “I don’t know.”

“Fresh air might do you some good. You can think about. Let me know later.”

He nodded.

She left him on the couch, going to the kitchen to start breakfast. Eventually she heard him going down the stairs to the basement and the shower started a few minutes later. That left her alone with her thoughts. And a few burned pancakes as she tried to work out how the hell she was going to tell him that she and Saul had completely fucked up his already severely fucked up body. It wasn’t like it was going to just come up in conversation. She would have to just barrel in and hope for the best. She owed him the truth. If nothing else, he deserved that, and he deserved to know that she understood the ramifications and that she was really fucking sorry for it all. There wasn’t a really good time or place—she’d waited so long to tell him—she couldn’t even remember why. It wasn’t like it was going to go away. It wasn’t like at some point it wouldn’t bite her in the fucking ass so she might as well tell him before it would blow up in both of their faces. It was seriously surprising it hadn’t already.

Maybe at the park would be the best place. Telling him here in the house was not ideal. For one, she didn’t want any fallout from it to take place in front of Franny, and it would super-awful parenting and horribly manipulating to use Franny as a shield to tell him so he wouldn’t flip out. Two, she really didn’t want to taint what she was trying to build in the house. She thought at least he felt some trace of safety here—he certainly seemed more comfortable and at home here than he ever did at the hospital. It was a _home_ after all, not just a house. Maybe the first home he’d ever truly been a part of.

Another pancake went in the trash with those thoughts.

She focused on the task so she could actually finish breakfast and managed to do so right before both Quinn and Franny emerged, he fully dressed and she still in her pajamas. She didn’t eat much but neither of them seemed to notice. Once Franny knew they were going to the park that was pretty much all it took.

“Can Quinn come to the park with us?”

“You should ask Quinn.”

Kids were so amazingly non-complicated. “Can you come to the park with us?”

“Um…”

“They have swings and a huge slide and monkey bars and… Mommy, what’s that thing that goes up and down?”

“The teeter-totter.”

“Yeah, that—but it’s like an airplane! And it goes in all directions and spins. Sometimes I like to be the pilot. But sometimes I like being on the side, too. There’s this one boy that’s kinda mean sometimes, he always wants to be the pilot and he doesn’t share and if he’s not the pilot then he makes the plane do this.” She flung herself onto the floor and demonstrated some very chaotic form of unpleasant teeter-tottering. “His name is Rory and he’s six and I don’t like him, but Mommy says I have to be nice to everyone but I think he’s out of chances. I think you should come and see the airplane-thing. And if Rory is there I’m gonna tell him my mom and Quinn are there and he’s gonna be in trouble if he’s mean. Are you coming with us? You can sit with Mommy. You don’t have to go on the monkey bars.”

Carrie wanted to laugh at the expression on Quinn’s face. It was priceless. There was so much information packed into that she thought he was seriously trying to catch up to the end.

If Franny only knew that she was basically asking if a former assassin could come to the park with them because there might be a mean six-year-old to take care of. It was seriously hilarious. She kind of couldn’t keep the huge shit-eating grin off of her face, and he totally caught her. He smiled back, because he was obviously thinking about it, too.

“Yeah, I guess I can’t miss the,” he struggled for a second, “uh—airplane.”

“Yay! I’m going to get dressed! Can we go then? Can we? Can we?”

Carrie laughed. “Yes.” And she was gone in a flash of ginger curls. “She’s pretty excitable. This ok?” she asked, grabbing the plates. “You really don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I can handle Rory.”

He smiled. “Might need backup. He sounds pretty dangerous.”

And it was settled.

*****

Getting to the park was a slower walk then normal, but Franny chattered pretty much the entire time, alternating holding Carrie’s hand for parts of the walk and Quinn’s for the rest. She didn’t seem bothered by the slower pace at all. And to the rest of the world, she figured they looked like a regular family just strolling on down to the local park—it was probably mind-blowingly straightforward to outsiders and appropriately complex and muddled to at least the two adult insiders. She would have paid good money to know exactly what Quinn was thinking right now.

Franny ran off in a flurry of energy once they reached the park and Carrie pointed Quinn to the usual bench she sat on. They watched her and the rest of the kids for a while. While she really wanted to ask him about the walk and exactly how fucking odd that probably was, there were more pressing matters.

Was it cowardly to do this in public? It was weird enough to be sitting on a park bench next to Quinn and watching her daughter run around playground equipment. A former CIA agent and an assassin walked into a bar… she was putting this off.

She didn’t like the distinction of before and after. That he was something different now—something…lesser. He was still Peter. Fucking. Quinn. It’s not like because he had these impairments that he ceased to be Quinn. He was just… struggling—it wasn’t like he was becoming someone else. At the same time was he ever going back to the person he was? Was that good or bad? Even if everything hadn’t happened the way it did, and he had left and gotten out, who would he have been then? So maybe her dislike of the distinction was just as fucking hypocritical as anything else. She realized either way, she didn’t really care. She just wanted Quinn safe and healthy with some semblance of a happiness he’d be robbed of for so many years before. And this really could mean that happiness wasn’t with her. He could make that choice today.

Time for full fucking disclosure. Basically everything was at stake. She couldn’t fuck this up.

There wasn’t a good way to do this. It wasn’t like she could ease him into it. She just had to fucking get on with it. No more putting it off.

“Quinn?”

His head swiveled to look at her. She wasn’t sure she could meet his eyes, but that also seemed cowardly, so she forced herself to keep eye contact.

“I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you a long time ago. Something… I don’t even really know how I…” she blew out a breath, shaky already. This was going to suck. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain this.”

His expression hadn’t really changed, just watching her, waiting. Patient. “What?” he finally asked.

“When you asked me about what happened before the stroke, I should have told you the whole story then. But I didn’t. Because… I guess I was scared or ashamed, or I don’t even fucking know.” Fucking spit it out. “After I found you, after the ambulance, you were in a coma. And we knew you were with the cell that was planning the attack. We thought—Saul and I—that they may have discussed the plans while you were there. That you might have information on where they were going to attack.”

She took a breath. “I thought at the time that if you knew, you’d want us to wake you up and stop the attack—which when I look back on that now, it sounds insane. You’d already been through so much and we didn’t even fucking know for sure…” She stopped, trying to control her emotions so she wouldn’t lose it before getting this out. “We did this to you. Saul and I. We put your life further at risk for information that you didn’t have. And I should have stopped it. I should have been stronger and insisted that we not take that chance with you. I realize there is nothing I can say that really even comes close to a proper apology—I don’t even think there are words to cover it. But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Quinn. If I could go back and do it over, I would. I know that it’s too late for that, but I want you to know that I refused to return to work with Saul because I couldn’t even stand to look at him. I couldn’t stand to look at myself. And I just—I think about if it had been reversed you would never have done it to me. I don’t know how to ask for forgiveness for this—it’s probably not even fair for me to ask you for it. But I am. And I will never put any job or mission above you or Franny or anyone again. I seriously fucked up. And it hurt you worse in the process. And I can’t take it back.”  

She hadn’t really been gauging his reaction. She was too focused on barreling through or else she wouldn’t get it all out. She didn’t think it came out in an elegant way—but that was never really her style anyway. She hoped he appreciated that it was at least honest. Now his face was largely vacant. He regarded her for a few more seconds and then looked away, back to the playground. Was that good? Was he processing? She couldn’t ask him to give her a response or say anything. What the fuck was he even supposed to say? All’s forgiven? No biggie? She fucked up his whole life.

He got up from the park bench, and she made no motion to stop him. It was all his choice at this point. She watched him walk away before she completely lost it—because even then, the visual representation of that choice she and Saul made was retreating in front of her—the limping gait, the drop foot, his left arm dysfunctional. It was like a visual roadmap of her mistakes. Thankfully Franny was too busy playing to notice that a) Quinn was missing and b) her mother was a sobbing mess on the bench he vacated.

This was yet another consequence of her impulsiveness, of machine-like thinking and valuing information over an individual. That had never been clearer to her. _Is there no fucking line?_ And if it was something he couldn’t forgive her for, she had to accept that as a consequence as well. At least she had told him. That was her one consolation—that at least he knew. _I can tell you what’s real if you have questions_. She never promised that reality was kind or that the truth was noble. Sometimes the truth fucking sucked. This was one of those times, but she’d been honest with him finally.

She’d mostly composed herself by the time Franny came running back over.

“Mommy? Are you crying?”

“Just a little sad, sweetheart. I’m ok.”

“Where’s Quinn?”

“He took a walk.”

“Is he why you’re sad?”

How should she answer that? “No… I just had to tell him something sad. And it made me sad, too.”

“He’s sad a lot, isn’t he?”

She wasn’t gutted enough apparently. “Yeah, honey, I think he’s probably sad a lot. It’s hard.”

“Will it get better?”

“I hope so.” She wiped at her eyes. “Are you ready to go?”

She looked around the playground. “Is Quinn coming back? Should we wait for him?”

Was he coming back? She couldn’t answer that. “He needs some time, I think. We’ll go back to the house and wait for him there. Ok?”

“Ok.”

*****

She left the basement door open when they got home so she could hear if he came back. Afternoon turned into evening, dinner came and went, dusk turned to nighttime, and the basement remained empty. She thought that was fitting in a way. It felt tangible—this man who she’d frequently stuffed down and hid away—once he was gone and the actuality of his absence set in, the emptiness was intolerable. A gaping wound that would fester—a piece of her missing.

She put Franny to bed and sat on the couch—the same spot she’d occupied the previous night, lulling him into an uneasy sleep. She wouldn’t sleep tonight; doubted he would wherever he was. She hoped he was somewhere safe. Hoped he wasn’t drowning himself with alcohol and drugs. Seriously considered drowning herself in some alcohol, but she knew that wouldn’t solve anything, which had to be some miracle in itself—that she didn’t just bust out the bottle. But if he came back, she wanted to be clear, sober.  

She heard a noise, faint, distant, and quiet to the point she wasn’t sure she was imagining it or not, or if it was some pipedream that he was actually back. She listened harder, getting up from the couch and moving to the doorway by the stairs. She could see a sliver of light at the bottom of the stairway—for a guy with his current incapacities, he was still apparently really fucking stealthy, or she was just too tired to be that alert. She was nervous; her heart beating wildly—didn’t know what she should do. Would she be welcome downstairs? What would she even say? _Hey, still sorry about this whole stroke thing. Have you forgiven me yet?_ Was it even possible? Was staying up here while she clearly knew he was back down there worse?

So she finally sat down on the top step, waiting while her palms grew sweaty and her unease remained heightened.

The tension broke her finally, and she vaulted down the stairs. She was not nearly as stealthy.

She wasn’t shocked to see him in the usual chair. She wasn’t shocked by the fact he looked like shit run over twice, either. It made her feel worse.

She sighed, emotions so raw that she was close to tears already and hadn’t even said anything. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm down. She didn’t think normal pleasantries were really called for at this point. “Are you…” _Are you ok?_ was what she was going to say, but stopped herself because it was apparent he was _so_ not ok—in any sense of that word. “I’m glad you came back,” she said instead.

He met her eyes on that statement. He didn’t say it, but she could read as much on his face: _Where else was I gonna go?_

It didn’t really matter to her why he came back at this point. The gaping, festering wound of his absence was less just with him in the room with her, even if it was still strained.

He seemed disinclined to be having a conversation with her, and she didn’t blame him, didn’t know what she really expected coming down here. She didn’t expect that he would just be cool with the whole thing; didn’t know what he’d even need to process that kind of information.

“I don’t know what else I can say. I don’t know if I can change your mind, or if you’ve even made up your mind—I don’t know what you’re thinking. Fuck, Quinn, I don’t really know anything anymore. But I do know that I want you to stay. And I’m sorry. Again. I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t stop the tears anymore. She wiped angrily at her cheeks. “I’m terrified of losing you. Still. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Because I was useful,” he said, in this lifeless tone that just hurt her to hear. Like it was just a given. Fact. It also didn’t escape her notice that he used the word _was_ instead of something present tense.  

“You _are_ so much more than that,” she said back quietly, choosing her tense carefully, and emphasizing what she wanted him to realize.

She should have said more. But one confession for the day was probably all he could handle, and she didn’t think he’d be very receptive to more from her right now. It would seem like a con—something said to try to manipulate him into forgiveness.

“Can I make you something to eat? I’m guessing you didn’t have dinner.”

“Not hungry.”

She nodded, figuring that was going to be the answer. “Ok.” She wanted to ask him if he took his pill but figured that would also not be well received.

After sitting there for another stretch where they said nothing and the air was ripe with tension, she finally got up and said, “I’ll be upstairs if you want to… talk or whatever, or not, I’m just going to be on the couch. If you need something… or…” she left the rest, wondering if she should apologize one more time, but decided against it and left him alone with his thoughts.

She was even more exhausted when she plopped on the couch, but sleep didn’t come.

He didn’t come upstairs.

*****


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

The rain to the wind said,  
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’  
They so smote the garden bed  
That the flowers actually knelt,  
And lay lodged–though not dead.  
I know how the flowers felt.

– Robert Frost

 

He didn’t know where the fuck he was.

Didn’t remember how he got here.

No clue where he was heading.

He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. There was something important he was forgetting, but all he could focus on was the puddle of blood in the road directly in front of the sidewalk he was standing on. Just right there in front of him—a massive pool of dark red, congealing blood. Must have been an artery—there was a huge spray off of the puddle, like a paint ball exploded. The smell was so familiar—hint of copper. Smell of death. Not nearly enough sand. No body. Must have moved that already.

Someone should do something about the puddle.

He looked down at his hands—his left was largely useless at the moment, which was odd, and when he brought his right up to eye-level it was covered in garish, viscous red. So much blood. So much blood on his hands.

So much fucking sand and dirt. He could taste it still, feel the grains embedded in his skin. You couldn’t get the shit out of your skin after a while. It just became a part of you. So far under your skin that it would never reach the surface. He could feel it deeper, clogging up his lungs, face down in the dirt. Dead just like that fucking poor bastard who’d left the puddle in the street.

He had a hilarious flash of that movie he’d watched one summer at some nameless foster home—he couldn’t remember what the fuck it was called, but he remembered the way his foster father’s belt felt on his back. The knight hopping around with one arm missing and insisting _‘Tis but a scratch! Just a flesh wound!_

Maybe this tightness in his chest was something else. There was no fucking sand in sight. He was in the middle of some concrete jungle. _New York._ Right, yes. New York. Maybe the tightness was his inability to breathe because his muscles were in spasm. _You flatlined in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Completely. For three whole minutes, you were dead._

It was probably the gas. It was colorless, odorless. He could be inhaling it right now and he’d have no fucking clue.

He found himself sitting on the sidewalk suddenly, the remnants of pancakes now obscuring the puddle of blood… except it wasn’t blood. It was just a puddle. Regular water now tainted with stomach acid. No blood. No blood on the ground, none on his hands.

It was like the world just sort of tilted back into place. No orange-ish hue. Just regular ambient noise and cars honking.

 _I’ve had worse._ Abso-fucking-lutely.

He tried to figure out where the fuck he was. Some residential street. They all looked the same. _We did this to you. Saul and I._ Right. Carrie and the park. He was completely fucked up from being gassed and they somehow thought it’d be a great idea to wake him up from a coma to ask if he had useful information on an attack and he had nothing to tell them.

Since he had no idea where the fuck he was, and he wasn’t really inclined to get up when his legs still felt kind of like jelly, this sidewalk was as good a place as any to mull things over.

He was trained to assess situations. To make decisions based on fact. To weigh variables and measure risk. _Skills deemed necessary for real-world missions: combat marksmanship, patrolling, weapons training, small unit tactics, special operations in urban terrain, close quarters combat, advanced marksmanship, sniper employment, long-range shooting, deliberate attack, and heavy weapons employment, in addition to combat casualty care, human rights awareness, land navigation, and mission planning, among others._

He had no information to give them. Would he have woken Carrie up if their roles were reversed? He didn’t think so. He wouldn’t have put her life at further risk. He could obviously say Saul wouldn’t have agreed with him. Unless the fact that it would have been Carrie instead of himself would have made a difference. He couldn’t say that for sure. Would it make a difference if he had actually had information to give? Would he feel differently about it?

He didn’t know what he felt. Emotions were dangerous. People leave. People die. People disappoint you. And yet he could never fully fucking turn them off. Sure, he could spend years pretending and lying to himself. He could pretend he felt nothing when he pulled the trigger again and again and again and again and again. He could pretend he was someone else. It never fucking worked. Taking out a target was one thing—it was mechanical; he could detach (until he made a mistake). It was quite another to witness suicide bombers exploding in a hail of flesh—pieces of blood and bone and red matter littering and scattering for hundreds of yards. The aftermath and carnage of the people in the vicinity, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Women, children, old men with canes, pieces of masonry and metal spiking out of their lifeless bodies or the unlucky ones, still clinging to life in spite of it. There was never enough they could do. Nothing helped. It was always one step forward, fifty back. It wasn’t solvable. And all it took was one thing—one small or hugely significant thing to rock the boat, and he was slammed back into the realm of emotion.

He wondered if that made him better or worse at his job? Could he even still call that his job? Was it ever a job? To make a career out of _mayhem_ was just… not something he could deal with today.

A Black Ops assassin with emotions was a total fucking oxymoron.

It was easier to be mechanical. To put on that mask. Just shut if off. It hurt less. If you didn’t give two flying fucks about anything, then nothing could touch you. He just wasn’t great at staying that way. Or he was until certain people got under his skin. He could only really think of a handful of people that were able to do that in his life; Julia and Carrie were the obvious ones. They were both incredibly strong women; didn’t take shit from anyone, and he loved them both—but in vastly different ways. It had always been easy with Julia. It was hard with Carrie. Maybe he liked the challenge. Or maybe she was just as fucked up as he was and that’s why he tried so hard—it was like fighting himself.

Or maybe the mechanical part was really the mask, and the one that had intense feelings was the real him. It didn’t really fucking matter anymore. It wasn’t like he was ever going back to that. Wasn’t like he’d be picking off targets in some European country in a few months, or joining up with the group again for a covert op. He wasn’t sure what to feel about that either. On the one hand, he felt a huge relief that he was probably never expected to go back to that line of work again. He was damaged goods—it was kind of ironic that after all of his attempts to get away from Dar Adal and his group that it took his face literally being all over every fucking television and computer screen in the world while quickly seemingly dying of sarin to do it. On the other hand, what the hell would he do? What could he even do _now_? It would have been bad enough with just the sarin—and his life was so completely fucking insane that the phrase _just sarin_ actually meant something _less terrible_.

Now, though, half of his body was in revolt. It was in sleep mode. No clear idea of when or even if it would wake itself up.

He was angry. He was pretty sure this was anger. Either that or he was hyperventilating. It was probably both. He forced himself to stand up, mostly because he just couldn’t sit here anymore, and he was finding it hard to breathe—there wasn’t enough air down here. It was only a matter of time before someone started asking questions and he wasn’t even sure he could answer them and he really didn’t want the cops to roll up and take him somewhere, especially not back to Carrie’s. Wouldn’t that just top the fucking day?

What the fuck was wrong with her? How could someone just suspend any sense of another person’s life and turn it to shit? He shouldn’t really have been that surprised, he guessed—she’d been willing to let Saul get blown to pieces just because she underestimated a terrorist’s attachment to his nephew. A kid she also fucked to get him to do what she wanted.

He turned a corner and was so fucking turned around—what the hell was he even saying? Didn’t he turn people’s lives to shit? He certainly destroyed families when he ended the life of their loved ones—didn’t really matter who they were, did it?

But it was different, wasn’t it? It was… _him_. It was _his_ life. He didn’t hurt Carrie ( _well, you did shoot her—to save her!_ ) He didn’t kill Brody because it would have hurt her irreparably. It just solidified for him that he obviously meant very little to her.

He loved her. He’d loved her for a long time. He’d loved her when he left for Syria. It didn’t go away just because he shut himself off. Berlin _hurt_. Seeing her with her new guy, when she’d told him she would fuck it up and that was the reason—there were so many reasons—he wasn’t asking her for marriage. He was asking for a chance. And he put himself out there to her in a way he didn’t think he even had with Julia. Julia knew enough and she truly cared about him, but she cared about the safety of their son more, and he couldn’t ever fault her for that. And for him, he did what she asked—he stayed away. He protected them by denying himself. But Julia hadn’t worked right alongside of him. She hadn’t been in the proverbial trenches of shit in Islamabad or Berlin. Carrie had a different understanding of where he was coming from because she came from it, too.

She’d moved on with someone else and telling him that she’d looked for him had apparently been sufficient. He wasn’t fucking stupid. He was an adult. He made choices, too. He chose to go to Syria. He chose to really make the decision for her. He took a chance and he lost. It wasn’t that much different than a lot of other things in his life.

This is why he avoided emotions—why it was easier to just kill and rinse, repeat in the morning. Thinking was reduced to only what was necessary. Eat, sleep, kill. Just because it’d been years didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting all over again. His chest felt so fucking tight.

He didn’t know what to think about her now. He didn’t think that her allowing him to live in their house was out of some sense of love. Was it like when he’d visited her in the hospital when she was all fucked out of her mind? He’d come because he was worried about her, but he felt something even then. Was that why she let him stay? She was worried about what would happen to him. That didn’t mean she had the same kind of feelings. It wasn’t like she’d made some epic love declaration to him. He needed someplace to go. He couldn’t stand to be in the hospital anymore. She facilitated the place. She helped him out.

It was confusing before. Now, though…if she felt responsible, was she just guilty? That could explain a whole fucking lot. It would explain everything really.

She felt like it was her fault. And because she felt like it was her fault, she felt like he was her responsibility. Fuck that. She didn’t owe him anything. Had he ever been anything but useful to her? What would happen now when the responsibility, the guilt, waned? What warranted “enough?” He wouldn’t be useful to her anymore.

He rounded another corner. There was a bar down this street. He still had no idea where he was, but the tightness in his chest was becoming seriously uncomfortable. His heart was racing, and it felt like everything was fluttering. He braced himself against the wall and watched a man flick a cigarette into the sidewalk and walk back to the bar. He couldn’t see his face, but he had an uneasy sense of being watched—that prickling sensation of the hair standing up on your arm. He turned and went back the way he came, taking an alley to cross to another street.

It took him three more blocks to realize he was being completely fucking insane and some random asshole coming out of the bar was probably not tailing him through the back alleys of New York.

He passed a restaurant; no clue what it was or what kind, but it was clear they charbroiled their meat. He shook his head, gagging as the smell overtook him—he didn’t have anything else in his stomach that could vacate—he was blessedly pleased about that. His vision blacked out and he grabbed for the nearest wall again, visions of men, blindfolded and beaten being led into ditches that served as mass graves. A man, completely nondescript of features, set on fire while hooded cowards watched on. Charred flesh falling off as he screamed—Quinn would never be able to forget that sound—before his lifeless body thudded to the ground.

He felt like that now—lifeless, so extremely tired, like the fatigue had just rolled in and sapped all the energy he had left.

He was on the ground again. His back against the wall. He’d managed to get far enough away from the smell that his stomach didn’t feel like crawling through his throat.

Someone touched his shoulder, and he nearly took their arm off.

It was a woman, medium build, brown hair, 50’s, he’d say. He hadn’t noticed her coming up to him. Holy fuck, he was out of his element. No one would have gotten that close to him before. They wouldn’t have entered his orbit without him knowing. He didn’t actually hear what she said to him, but she was still talking. His ears were way too busy ringing. It was like being in a warzone and an RPG had just gone off. That suspended moment in time where everything was like slow motion and all noise cut off save for the tremendous ringing, balance completely shot. No chance at equilibrium.

The end finally filtered in. “…ok?”

He couldn’t make the words come out. He just wanted her to go away.

She snapped her fingers and he tried to focus. “Sir? Are you ok? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

Fuck no. “N-no.” He shook his head. “No. M’ok.”

She crouched down by him. “I don’t think you are.”

“This guy bothering you, Gina?”

“No, he’s not. Paul, can you help us here?”

“Help what?”

“This young man is coming inside.”

He hadn’t been called a young man in… he didn’t even know how long. He was never really a young man. And inside where? The fuck? He seriously considered throat-punching _Paul_ , but he was just too tired. So he accepted the help getting up and then found himself inside a diner that was really fucking bright and fluorescent to the point he got an instant headache—or it became worse.

 _Gina_ steered him to the back of the diner, where it was blissfully darker. She sat him in a booth, and this was all very odd. She sat him where he would have sat himself if he was in any right mind to do so—back to the wall—could see every exit. She was gone and back in a flash and sat a cup of coffee down in front of him. “Cream? Sugar?”

He shook his head.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Thanks.”

“How long have you been back?”

Apparently having a flashback/panic attack on a New York City street was pretty obvious. He still must not have done a good job of keeping the surprise off of his face. And even though she was making this assumption, she really had no idea.

She smiled softly. “I have a son about your age. He lives in North Carolina now. He couldn’t live in the city. Took him a long time to re-acclimate. Where were you?”

“All over. Syria last.”

She nodded. “Can I call someone for you?”

He shook his head. That wasn’t happening.

“Hungry?”

“No, thank you.”

She nodded like she hadn’t expected him to take her up on that. “I’ll keep the coffee coming. Stay as long as you like, but I’m not letting you leave until I know you’re settled.”

He smiled softly. That must have been her mom voice—not that he’d really know from experience, but it seemed like she wasn’t really taking no for an answer. No negotiations. He nodded, tiredly. She was being uncommonly nice to a complete stranger who could have been a complete lunatic, so fighting with her seemed like severely poor taste even if he wasn’t completely exhausted.

He sipped at the coffee. As he looked out the window, he realized that it had gotten dark out. He had no clue what time it was, but it had been some time during the late morning when they’d gone to the park. He couldn’t really account for where the time had gone. Customers came and went, families, a couple on an obvious first date, an old couple that held hands on the way out and came in just for pie, a girl that was too young to be on the streets, but it was obvious she was, some asshole that sent back his burger twice. Some things were ingrained from training—he couldn’t turn it off.

Gina sat a plate down in front of him. Scrambled eggs and toast. “You look pale. At least eat a few bites.”

He smiled as she walked away. He picked at the eggs, ate enough of the toast that she wouldn’t be completely disapproving.

None of the people in this diner knew about the operations he conducted. Even Gina, with her soldier son; he had a feeling her son was a regular Army grunt on the ground. Not that he thought that made her son’s experience any less important or easier to return to civilian life—he was trained to believe their mission and the orders they received were more important than their own personal needs. You suppressed your own desire to support the mission, the unit, the team. It wasn’t any different for Quinn—the Black Ops training he received was just more intensive in other ways—the message was the same. But still, every day in around 80 countries that were never on-book, missions to capture and/or kill targets were underway that were also completely classified. Regular American taxpayers funded them every day without any knowledge of their existence. It was shrouded in mystery and secrecy, from the public and from the citizens of the 135 nations they’d been deployed to as special operations.

Even Gina, would she be as accommodating and as kind as she was being if she knew the things he’d done? He’d played Russian roulette with his life more times than he could count. Took chances and risks that most people would run the other way from. Did that make him brave or profoundly stupid? He supposed it was a bit of both.

Did he have a death wish? He couldn’t even compute comparable odds to his survival anymore. He’d cheated death so many times he’d lost count. He bet on black and for some unknown reason the fucking ball dropped on black every time. At some point his luck had to run out. That had been Berlin. The darkness he’d skirted his whole life finally swallowed him whole. Or maybe it had swallowed him up a long time before that. Maybe he skirted the light instead, surfacing from the darkness only on rarer occasions.

He honestly never thought he’d really make it past Syria. Once that was over, once he’d told a roomful of people who had no fucking clue what was going on in that godforsaken pit of sand, in no uncertain terms to fuck off, he hadn’t really cared enough to do anything else. _Meaning pound Raqqa into a parking lot._ So he agreed to be Saul’s personal assassin until Carrie’s name had come up—survived getting shot again.

Was it really so different if he hadn’t planned on living anyway? When he was willing to die for her in the warehouse, his body full of sepsis, or drown himself with a fucking cinderblock? If not for… fuck, he couldn’t remember his name, if not for the doctor who happened upon him, he would have died anyway. Only to be kept alive to die in a fucking gas chamber, as a guinea pig for a terrorists’ sarin gas advertisement. And he _still_ hadn’t fucking died.

Seemed like he had some unconscious (or maybe it was conscious for all he fucking knew) death wish, could he really blame Carrie for putting him one step closer to that? For someone who really kept trying to die, he kept fighting an awful lot, too. In his defense, he hadn’t actually tried to die by sarin gas.

He didn’t really fucking know anymore. But he knew she had disappointed him regardless of whatever he’d done to himself. He thought disappointment might have been worse than just being angry with her.

Gina slid back across from him in the booth. “You ate more than I thought you would.”

He smiled. “You’re small, but I think you could probably… kick my ass. Thank you.”

“We’ll be closing up soon.”

He nodded. “What do I owe you?” What a fucking loaded question. He owed her a lot.

She shook her head, waving him off. “It’s on the house.”

“I’d rather pay for the—” He gestured to the plate and mug on the table.

“I’d rather you not,” she said, smiling again in that non-negotiable way.

He nodded. “Well, thank you. For everything. I can’t even…” he couldn’t come up with even what to say beyond that.

She covered his hand with hers. “If you were my son, I’d want someone to do it for him. I was happy to help. Can I call you a cab?”

“You could tell me where I am. That would help.”

She watched him for a minute, not really surprise on her face, but just…it wasn’t pity, either. Concern maybe? “You’re in Hell’s Kitchen. This is the Blacktop Diner.”

He actually laughed at that. What were the fucking odds he’d wind up in _Hell’s Kitchen_?

She tipped her head in question.

“Just…fitting.”

She smiled softly. “I’ll get you a cab.”

He couldn’t really say he felt any better. He was even more tired it if was possible, which apparently it was.

It was only a few minutes more when she returned to the table. “Cab’s here.”

He nodded and extricated himself from the booth. His muscles were in serious revolt. He also realized he hadn’t taken his meds. There hadn’t been a reason to take them to the park. He was only a few hours past, but still. That would be all he needed yet—to convulse on some nameless Hell’s Kitchen street.

Gina stayed near him, but wasn’t hovering. She opened the cab door. “Take care of yourself, ok? You’re welcome here anytime if you need someplace to go, ok?”

“Thanks. For everything—really. Not sure what would have,” he struggled for the word, “happened to me tonight.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“You got a name?”

He smiled. “Peter.”

“Nice to meet you, Peter. Can I give you a small piece of advice?”

He wasn’t sure he wanted more advice, but it would impolite to say that given what she’d done for him tonight. “Yeah, sure.”

“My son tried to distance himself when he got back. He didn’t think being around people was a good thing. That was a mistake. Don’t try to do this alone.”

He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good night, Peter.”

“Thanks again.”

He gave the cab driver the address to Carrie’s and waved to Gina as they pulled away. He put his head back on the seat. It was nice to just sink in and watch the random buildings fly by; the cadence of the street lights—dark, light, dark, light, dark, light.

He paid the cab driver and stood in front of her building for a few minutes. He could see there was still a light on in the living room. He couldn’t say he was really surprised by that, even though it was probably some ungodly hour of the night or morning.

He let himself in through the basement entrance. He didn’t really feel like talking to her now. Maybe the light was on but she’d fallen asleep. The universe could pay him one more kindness tonight, right?

No such luck.

He’d been super quiet coming in—not like, breaking and entering quiet, but quiet enough. He could sense more than hear her, although the floor creaked when she moved from the living room to the top of the stairwell. She didn’t come down right away—she was probably waiting for him to say something. She could fucking wait forever at this point.

When she finally decided to come down, it was hilariously noisy. He wasn’t sure if she was announcing her entrance not to scare him or…he didn’t fucking know. But there she was.

She looked tired. Not nearly as tired as he felt, but just…tired. Worried probably. He was her responsibility or whatever.

She sighed and he watched her get all teary even though she hadn’t said anything yet. She let out a breath and tried to calm down before she said, “Are you…” but then stopped—if she fucking was going to ask if he was ok, he might have got up and left again. _No, he obviously was not fucking ok._

“I’m glad you came back,” she said instead.

He looked at her then, not saying anything back, but seriously, where was he gonna go?

He didn’t know what she really wanted at this point. He didn’t want to talk to her and the least she could do right now was fuck off. He wasn’t going to forgive her 12 hours after she told him she made him a paralyzed mutant just because she had the balls to say so.

She kept talking anyway. “I don’t know what else I can say. I don’t know if I can change your mind, or if you’ve even made up your mind—I don’t know what you’re thinking. Fuck, Quinn, I don’t really know anything anymore. But I do know that I want you to stay. And I’m sorry. Again. I’m so sorry.” She was in tears again at this point—full on wiping them away. Before this morning he would have probably been very affected by that, wanted to help in some way especially if it was in reference to him, but right now, he just didn’t fucking care. She’d done this to herself. “I’m terrified of losing you. Still. I don’t want to lose you.”

She didn’t want to lose him? Why? Because she’d let him leave for Syria after he’d flat out told her he couldn’t get out on his own. He’d practically pleaded for her help. She didn’t want to lose him but she was fine moving on without him with that German jackass. She didn’t want to lose him but she was fine giving him a stroke which could have ended his life. Why the fuck didn’t she want to lose him? For what purpose? “Because I was useful,” he said finally, hoping she’d just fucking confirm it for once. It was fact anyway. He was useful to her. Just like Brody. Just like Aayan. He certainly wouldn’t be useful anymore. What the fuck could he even do for her now? What _use_ was he now? He didn’t want to be _useful_.

“You _are_ so much more than that,” she said back, super-quiet and calmly, looking straight at him.

He didn’t know how to take that—what she meant by it. Was she looking for forgiveness because she somehow now thought he was more than useful?

She didn’t offer any more. Just asked, “Can I make you something to eat? I’m guessing you didn’t have dinner.”

“Not hungry,” he said quickly. It wasn’t a lie. She didn’t need to know about Gina and the diner.

She nodded back at him. “Ok.”

She stopped talking, just kind of waiting on him or whatever, but she must have forgotten he’d been an assassin and could sit for hours and not talk and not be disturbed by it. He could be unfailingly patient and wait out just about anyone. He could also be completely fucking stubborn if he wanted to, and he didn’t feel like giving her a break tonight.

She finally took the hint and stood, saying, “I’ll be upstairs if you want to… talk or whatever, or not, I’m just going to be on the couch. If you need something… or…” she dropped off, and just walked back up the stairs.

He got up one more time to get his pill, but moved back to the chair then. He slept on and off for a while, but images playing on a loop prevented true sleep.

He didn’t go upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to ascloseasthis for her editing and assistance with everything! And to NikitaSunshine for her repeated discussions!


	3. Chapter 3

I have been one acquainted with the night.  
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.  
I have outwalked the furthest city light.  
  
I have looked down the saddest city lane.  
I have passed by the watchman on his beat  
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

– Robert Frost 

 

Carrie didn’t know what the fuck to do.

She knew that telling Quinn what role she’d had in his current state was the right thing.  But just like when she’d betrayed Saul to save his life, she felt the same way she had then.   _Because there are only wrong choices._  She told the truth and now she was paying for it.  The masochistic and guilty part of herself felt like she totally deserved this warranted Quinn-Gate he had going on.  She’d fucked up his life and anything she felt like she gained since he’d been at her house was gone in the instant she told him.

It certainly wasn’t the outcome she wanted.

Franny kept asking questions about why Quinn was in the basement again all the time—even the four-year-old knew shit was going down.  And she couldn’t very well tell Franny, so she had to keep making shit up, or just kind of blowing it off.  He needed time.  He wasn’t feeling well.  He was sad again.  Franny though, bless her, just thought that meant he should be around them more.  That maybe going back to the park would help.   _Not fucking likely.  He’d probably never want to see that shit again._ Not easy to explain how mommy made Quinn sad by telling him the truth when she always told Franny to tell the truth.

She’d dug herself in deep with this one.

It was like he’d thrown himself into some self-imposed exile.  Or maybe he was exiling her.

The problem was she knew he wasn’t doing well, either.  She heard the nightmares, which had only gotten worse since she told him.  She kind of expected that.  She’d just sent him on an emotional roller coaster when the day before she’d been working so hard to level him off.  It fucking sucked.  She worried about him constantly and fought with herself daily to go down there and force him to just accept her help again.  She heard him break shit a few times.

She didn’t know how long she actually lasted.  It was days; she knew that much.  Maybe a week at most.  She woke up one morning to coffee already made and wondered if that was some kind of peace offering, but the next morning there was no coffee and she just couldn’t let it go that night.  It was like listening to a drowning man going under and just sitting on the shore when you knew how to swim.  Or that horrible sound he made when they’d removed the breathing tube in Berlin.  She just couldn’t do it anymore.  She was haunted, too—just in different ways.

If he wouldn’t meet her halfway, she’d meet him all the way.  She could do that for him.  She wanted to.  Not because she felt guilty but because she _wanted_ to.

When she heard the nightmare start, she bounded down the stairs and watched him on the bed for what seemed like forever, but was only probably a few seconds before she saw an in and took it, lying behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest and shifting her legs to bracket his.  It was probably ridiculous—she was like half of his size, and spooning Quinn was definitely not how she saw this going, but a frontal assault when she had no gauge for his mental state for the past week was just not smart.

She buried her forehead in the back of his neck and pretty much just hung on, trying not to be restrictive with her arms but enough that he would feel them.  She didn’t really want a black eye, either.  Who knew what the fuck he was dreaming about?  She started talking lowly, trying to make him relax, but again, she didn’t know how far he’d progressed this week and fully acknowledged that he might not be in the mood for anything from her.

He jerked, and she knew he was awake.  She burrowed her head in further and squeezed him lightly, but she didn’t say anything.  She could feel his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.  His breathing was all choppy and fucked, and when she pulled back to try to look at his face, from what she could see, his eyes looked like he’d been crying.  It was really fucking awful.

“Hey,” she said after a beat, super quietly.  She kind of felt like she was trying to coax an injured animal out of their pen.  She didn’t know what would make him bolt, and she didn’t want him to.

He didn’t say anything back.  She wasn’t sure he could.

“Tell me what you dreamt,” she whispered.

“No.”  His voice was like gravel.  Pulverized gravel.

Ok then.  But he wasn’t moving.

“Do you want me to leave?” she whispered again.

He was quiet for long enough she thought he either wasn’t going to answer or had fallen back to sleep.  “No,” he whispered back.

Well that was something.  So she burrowed back into his neck again and when she could tell he was crying again, she cried with him, getting the whole back of his collar wet until they both fell asleep.  She didn’t move until he was awake in the morning.  She didn’t ask him anything.  Just squeezed him lightly and went upstairs.  He seemed surprised when she came back down and left him coffee and breakfast on the counter.  She didn’t say anything then either.

When she and Franny got home that night, the light on the dishwasher indicated the cycle was done, and when she opened it, all of the dishes were done including the ones she’d left him that morning.

This was apparently how you communicated with Quinn.  You said nothing, but you got it anyway.  You showed him; you didn’t tell him.  She’d have to be much better at that.  Maybe forgiveness for him wasn’t tied to an apology or words, but actions that proved you meant it.

She came down that night before the nightmares started and didn’t say anything again; just wrapped herself around him and that was that.  His breathing evened out almost immediately—like he was afraid she wasn’t going to come down, but wasn’t going to ask her, either.

She couldn't actually remember him ever asking her for anything. Even after Pakistan, he hadn't actually come out and _asked_ her.  He'd told her what he wanted—what he needed—it was different than asking. She asked a lot of him over the years. A lot.

When she thought back to any sort of argument they'd had before, there hadn't been a ton of talking things out. This wasn't the same; it wasn't like she was relegating her responsibility for his condition to an argument, but maybe the process was similar. If she was completely honest, they'd talked more in the last few weeks than they ever had. He usually said what he wanted about whatever he thought she was doing and that was the end of it—he didn't bring shit up to rehash again. He'd told her what he thought or felt and it was up to her what she did with it. He left the ball in her court. It was probably the assassin training that made him completely silent when he needed or wanted to be. Or maybe it was the soldier part that allowed him such patience and stoicism. She’d never met anyone who defined the word stoic more than Quinn.   _stoic – noun – a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining._  Or maybe it was a combination of all of that with whatever his past had been—she hadn't told him she knew a little about that yet, either.

So not asking, and even resisting help sometimes—was it a pride thing or because he’d never been able to ask someone for anything before?  If he’d truly never been able to count on anyone being there, it made more sense that he’d reject it from her.  But he also had an obvious and deep-seated fear of rejection in general.  It wasn’t exactly normal to just join up and traipse off to Syria for two years of recon and kill missions just because someone hadn’t really turned you down yet.  It wasn’t exactly true the statement that she knew his shit just as well as he knew hers.  There was so much else there that she didn’t know.

It was like navigating a maze of never-ending walls with him.  She’d poke a hole in one only for another to be behind it.  Knock one down and the fucker had a twin hanging out next to it.  It was a damn good thing she was tenacious about things she cared about.

*****

They fell into a sort of routine.  She wasn’t sure what to call it really.  She knew he needed stability and routine was important.  And he became a staple of their house–another piece in the puzzle of their tiny family unit.  She went to work, Franny went to preschool, and Quinn did whatever he did during the day.  She tried not to press—but suggested that he go back to therapy on an outpatient basis, physical and speech and otherwise, but she didn’t force anything.  Whether or not he did that, he needed to want to get better for himself—not for her or Franny.

Slowly she asked him to start doing things—picking up Franny from school, starting simple dinners, get milk from the convenience store, and he seemed to genuinely like the tasks.  After work, they’d have dinner together and it was sort of like he’d always been there.  Their nights were filled with activities with Franny and board games and she’d never really seen someone so content with mundanity.   _Normal life.  Feels good.  Just laughing, ya know._

It was sort of this unstated schedule in the evening.  Franny’s bedtime rolled around, and either she or Quinn (or sometimes both) would go through the nightly ritual—pjs and brushing teeth.  Then it was tucking in and story time.  And in typical Franny behavior, she easily roped him into becoming part of that, too.  She was very persuasive (guess she had a fair amount of her mother in her).  Didn’t hurt that Quinn was a complete sucker for her, either.  One night she had this realization while she held the book that Franny had picked out for that night—and held it out to Quinn.

“Why don’t you read this tonight?”

His eyebrows shot up.  “What?”

“Yeah!”  Heh.  She knew Franny would jump on the bandwagon with her.

“Um,” he said, looking down at the book.  “I don’t…think that’s a good idea.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Carrie said softly.  “I think you should try.”

He sighed, letting out a shaky breath.  She could tell he was super uncomfortable with this idea.

“Hey,” she said, waiting until he looked at her over the top of Franny’s head, each of them on either side of her.  “It doesn’t matter to us.  It’ll be good practice.”

She could see outright fear in his eyes, but he nodded once and looked down at Franny, “You’ll have to hold the book.”  Franny grabbed it immediately, happy to help.

Strokes were all about retraining the brain, right?  Two birds and all that—Franny was happy and this could be like mini-speech therapy.  She was a former fucking spy; she could be sneaky.

Franny had picked _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ , which she probably could have recited without the book, they’d read it so many times.  She was also fairly certain Franny could “read” it as well from memory.

She smiled when he started.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as she was sure he thought it would be.  And it was adorable when he’d get stuck because Franny would let him pause for a while and try to figure it out before saying something like, “My teacher says we should try to sound it out.”

Carrie had done quite a bit of research in the last few weeks.  Things she probably should have asked about or researched all the while he’d been at the hospital.  The hospital’s focus early on had definitely been functional motor skills and basic speech.  He didn’t need to sound it out.  He needed something else that would trigger his brain into getting the word.

“What letter does it start with?” she asked him instead.

“L,” he said immediately.

“What color is it?”

“Green.”

“Where would you find it?”

“Leaf.”

She smiled.  “You got it.  Didn’t even need our help.”

He smiled back at her—like a true, happy smile.  One that met his eyes and made the corners crinkle.  It was so small—such a small thing, but it was beautiful.  They could do this.   

*****

Most of their nights after Franny was in bed were some of the strangest of her life.  It was this surreal and fantastic universe where two former CIA operatives sat on a couch together and watched movies and TV, or read their own respective books silently in the dim living room light.  She got the impression that the escapism of modern media was not something that he’d had a lot of in his life, and she was amused with how it captured his attention.  Either that or he was just too polite to say anything.  Sometimes she’d try to make him talk about things, about how he felt about things, but more often than not they just shared space.  And it was really fucking odd to her that it didn’t really feel odd at all.  But then she and Quinn had never been huge conversationalists.  They’d always existed in this sphere of their own where argument and challenge still gave way to the rarest of mutual admiration and respect.  It was the same sphere in which she’d realized all of those years ago that he was important to her.  That she didn’t like functioning without him there.  That he had somehow become both her friend and her most trusted ally and confidant just by being present and interested in what happened to her.  He _cared_ .  His mere presence brought her a sense of calm and ease.  He made her feel safe.  It felt good.  She didn’t have that with anyone else—not in that same way.  Saul was like a father figure, and she’d lost the respect and admiration slowly but surely over the years.  Quinn wasn’t perfect, but he rarely disappointed her.  They say 90% of life is showing up, and he was excellent ( _reliable_ ) at showing up.

The basement gradually became a place he went only during the day when they weren’t around, or on some nights when he just needed to retreat to a…she didn’t really know what to call it.  He had good days and great days and some really fucking shitty days.  Sometimes he just needed to wallow in the mire and process whatever he had going on.  He wasn’t particularly forthcoming and she owed him the time alone if he needed to work it out.  She wished and hoped at some time that he’d seek out some more professional help for it, but she also realized that until his communication and thoughts were cohesive, it would probably frustrate him more.

Sleep was still a struggle even though they’d moved back to the couch.  Even if his day was great, his sleep was more often than not conflicted.  Things he couldn’t talk about, or couldn’t get out in ways that satisfied his psyche enough not to fuck with him again.  Night after night, she’d bear witness to the violence he’d seen express itself in whimpers and shouts and screaming.  It was a good night if the dreams stayed in the whimper and whispered ‘no’ stage.  It was an awesome night if he was just restless.  She knew it wasn’t just Berlin, although those were some of the most violent of his nightmares.  It was weird how she started to be able to gauge what he might be dreaming about by the severity of the reaction.  He’d been a field operative and a Black Ops agent for over a decade.  And based on the conversation she had with that asshole Dar Adal in the hospital in Berlin, there were piles upon piles of shit before that, too.  Shit she could only dream about, and that was from someone who’d been on the front lines—she couldn’t even imagine what that did to a person’s subconscious, their emotional state.

She’d been studying him from her side of the couch, debating how to bring this up again in a way that would go better than the last time.

“Take a…” he made a motion, “picture,” he said finally, smirking.

She smirked back at him.  Asshole.  Did she even have a picture of Quinn?  Did any candid pictures of him even exist?

“What?” he asked when she didn’t say anything else.    

She debated for all of another second and then blurted, “Look—I get that this is kind of weird and completely unconventional but when have we ever been that?  Just come upstairs, ok?  I don’t think I can sleep on this couch another night.”

That was not what he was expecting.  “You don’t have to s-stay here with me every night.”

“I know I don’t have to—and I don’t mind it, either.  It would just be nice to be more comfortable, don’t you think?  Mattresses were made for a reason you know.  Can we at least give it a try?”

“Seems like it’s going to be…” He struggled for the word he wanted, pointing between the two of them.

“Can you use a different word?” she asked.

“Weird.”

“It’s going to be weird for us to sleep in a bed?”

He gestured again, shaking his head.  That was not the word he wanted.  “Aw-aw-aw.”  He snapped his fingers and then gestured again.

“Awkward?”

“Yes!  Awkward.  Thank you.”

“Less awkward than us sleeping on the couch in basically the same way.”

“Bed’s different.”

She sighed, resigned to another couch night.  “Ok.”

“Just go—d-don’t need to babysit me.”

“What happens if you have a nightmare?”

“I’ll han-han-deal with it.”

She nodded.  She’d either made him nervous or he was getting super tired—he struggled more then.  “Are you going to actually try to sleep if I go upstairs?”

He hesitated, not enough for most people to notice, but enough she knew he was fucking lying.  “Yeah.”

“Will you please come upstairs if you have one?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She thought he was lying about that too.

(He was.)

The house was silent at night—she wasn’t sure if he didn’t think she was going to hear him or what.  But he didn’t come upstairs and she didn’t go down, either.  She’d given him a perfectly reasonable solution.  If he didn’t want to take it…

He looked like shit in the morning.  More haunted than she’d seen him look in weeks.

She didn’t offer him a choice the next night.  Just grabbed his hand and started pulling him up off of the couch.  He said nothing.

It _was_ kind of awkward.  It was her bedroom—her space.  She didn’t want to make this uncomfortable, although she could tell he felt that way.  They were two adults who were perfectly capable of sleeping in the same bed.

“So I normally sleep on this side of the bed,” she said, pointing to the left side.   

He nodded at her absently, his eyes taking in the rest of the room.  She couldn’t recall him ever being in her room before.

Truthfully, it wasn’t like there were a ton of personal touches if he was looking for them.  Some random art prints on the walls, a couple occasional chairs with various articles of clothing she hadn’t put away, hamper, a few books.  It was pretty standard stuff.  Franny had left a coloring book and some crayons on the nightstand.  Her dresser probably had the distinction of holding the most intimate things in the room, but even at that, it was mostly pictures of family, Franny, a few knick knacks, the dish where most of her jewelry went, a vase her dad had bought her once.

She let him peruse while she turned down the covers.  “You coming?” she finally asked, smiling softly at him.  She’d in effect slept with him in one way or another for most of the time he’d been living in her house, but she knew that this was something else.  It _was_ different than the couch—the bed made it severely more intimate.  More intimate, too, than her joining him in the guest bed downstairs.  It was _her_ bed.  An invitation to sleep in it, but still an invitation into her bed.  She wasn’t unhappy with that, but she did acknowledge that it was kind of a trust thing—she was asking him to trust her.  She couldn’t exactly pinpoint or say _what_ she was asking him to trust her with, but she knew it was important.

Franny wasn’t something she’d discounted, and she was well aware of Quinn’s nightmares.  Thankfully she was a heavy sleeper, and she didn’t normally know when they were happening, but she’d fielded questions from her daughter multiple times when Franny had either heard one or happened to come downstairs before she and Quinn had gotten up for the day.  She was young enough that she didn’t really question the why so much, more of just the what.  It was just taken for fact: Quinn had bad dreams, and just like when Franny had them, Carrie was there to mitigate the fear, to make him feel better.  She wasn’t sure how she was going to explain this one yet if her daughter happened to walk in on them in the morning.  The simplest answer was probably the easiest—her mom’s bed was more comfortable than the couch.

There wasn’t really anything else to say, so she just settled for, “Night, Quinn” once they were both lying down.

He answered her with a quick, “Night.”

There were two very large differences with being in the bed: 1) While sleeping in the same bed was more intimate, they were actually much farther apart physically—he was used to her having some kind of contact with him through the entire night, whether it was his head in her lap or her head on his shoulder or even a few times where they wound up full-on cuddling on the couch.  They didn’t talk about those times.  She didn’t tell him how content she’d been to do it, either.  2) She couldn’t really observe him at all without being totally obvious.  She was normally a side sleeper, but opted for lying on her back because the alternatives were the totally obvious watching him or turning away, neither of which she really wanted to do at the moment.

She dozed off while lost in her thoughts, and didn’t wake until morning—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a complete night’s sleep (was it because she knew he was there next to her?  Safe?).  When she turned to say good morning, though, he was gone, and she had no way of knowing at what point he got up.

Coffee was already brewing when she made it downstairs, and he was just pouring himself a cup.  He grabbed another mug and filled one for her, too.

“Hey,” she said, yawning.

“Hey.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Sure.”

She sighed, grabbing her mug and relishing the hot bitterness for a few seconds while she formulated how to respond to his stupid-ass-too-early-for-this-bullshit comment.  She had a full repertoire of smart ass remarks ready, but in the end, it wouldn’t help anything.  She didn’t think he was trying to be flippant.  “Was it too weird?”

He sat on one of the stools in the kitchen and she could tell he was thinking about her question.  “Not really.”

“Wasn’t it more comfortable at least to be in a bed?”

“Not really,” he said again, in the same tone.

She cocked her head.  “Why not?”

He met her eyes.  “M’used to sleeping other places.  Sometimes after m-m-missions I’d sleep on the floor for months.”

Well, shit.  That hadn’t even crossed her mind.  She wasn’t sure how to respond really.

“I’ll sleep downstairs,” he said after a beat, sipping from the mug and looking out the window.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Tried very hard not to yell at him.  It was really hard to know what was right with him.  Right wasn’t even the correct word.  It was just—he knew a shit-ton about her; she really knew very little about him.  He’d always been extremely closed off in the beginning—nothing he’d told her in that first meeting about himself was seemingly true.  It was just another story.  A well formulated one for the persona he had to be at that time.  She didn’t want that, though.  She wanted to know what really was true.  Funny because that was what he had problems with now—what was real.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She shook her head, lost in thought.  “About what?”

He pointed to the living room.  “The couch.  Everything.”

She didn’t want him to feel bad.  “Quinn—”

“You slept really well last night.”

Well there, that answered it.  She’d slept really well and he’d probably watched her sleep all night.  And just like that, their roles snapped back a few years—and he was going to drop back into the basement and sleep on the goddamned floor or something.  Because he was perceiving that her helping him sleep was a detriment to her, and he couldn’t have that.  Regardless of the fact that he’d hose himself in the process.  She supposed it was surprising he lasted this long—actually receiving something; being the taker instead of the giver.  But he’d needed it badly enough at the time to take it (although her forcing the subject probably had assisted with him taking it).

She formulated a thousand different things she could say, ran the gamut of letting him go back downstairs or shouting at him to come to reason.  Instead she asked, “How do you sleep really well?”

She didn’t know what he expected her to say, but it certainly wasn’t that.  He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”  She’d wound up on the exact opposite side of the counter as he was, staring him down.  “It matters to me that you can sleep.  So if sleeping on the couch with you will help you sleep, then I’ll sleep on the couch, Quinn.”

“Carrie—”

“If you’re going to insist on sleeping downstairs tonight, I’m coming down,” she shrugged back at him in answer.  “You fucking know I will—I’ve done it before.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but his features broken into confusion for a second before he said, “I don’t remember the last time I slept well.  Even before.”

That was so fucking sad, like, miserably heart-wrenchingly sad.

“Did you sleep well as a kid?”

He smiled, but it was an incredibly sad smile.  It reminded her of the smile he’d given her when she’d ask him all of those years ago why he hadn’t come with her to Afghanistan.   _I wanted to bring you. Why didn't you come?_  “No,” he said simply.

She weighed several things because this conversation could have gone in any number of directions.  She had to decide really quickly how much to let on that she actually already knew or go for just asking questions, how much he was actually going to tell her, and how she knew.  “Foster care, right?”

His head came up at that, surprised.  “How did you…”

She nodded once.  “So before you woke up in Berlin, I walked in one morning to find Dar Adal sleeping in the chair next to your bed.”

The change in his mood was immediate, even his posture changed.  He sat up straighter, and it was like the walls that she hadn’t seen in more than a year just slammed back up to protect him.  “And what the fuck did you two talk about?”

Carrie moved to the other side of the island, sitting next to him instead.  She didn’t want this to come off as confrontational.  “It wasn’t like that.  Look, I have no idea what the hell went on between you two, but I think he was just sad that it happened to you.  The way he talks about you is like you’re his kid.”

His expression was carefully blank, but there was such an underlying wave of anger, it was palpable.

“Anyway, he just was kind of proudly talking about how you were the youngest Special Activities Division recruit that the agency ever had and that he’d found you in a foster home in Baltimore when you were sixteen.  Really that guy just gives me the fucking creeps.  There’s something profoundly devious there.”

“No shit.”

Well this was going well.  “So not Philly then?”

“No.”

“No Hill School?  No Harvard?”

“Nope.”

“Gosh, I’m so disappointed,” she deadpanned, “I thought for sure I could attribute your cocky, smart ass attitude to you being a spoiled ivy-league bastard.  Now you’re just a regular cocky smart ass.”

She got a small smile, but not the kind she’d anticipated.  This was dangerous territory she was wading in.  And he didn’t seem inclined to share.  He never did when Adal’s name came up.  “Tell me something true about Peter Quinn.”

After a beat, he said, “Peter Quinn doesn’t really exist.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he’s something created.”

“And who are you then?”

“I’m what’s left of John Quinn.”

“Where does Peter end and John begin?”

“I couldn’t tell you anymore.  S-ship sailed.”

“And Adal created Peter?”

He nodded.

“Why Peter?”

“Peter was the rock.”

“Like as in ‘on which I will build my church?’”

“He’s always had a God complex.”

“Why didn’t he change your last name?”

He shrugged.  “To remind me of who I used to be?  And that was gone?  I dunno anymore, Carrie.”

“What happened to Peter?”

“A lot of shit happened to Peter.  But so far I haven’t achieved martyrdom.”

“Was that the plan?”

“I dunno.  Sometimes I think so.  Sometimes I don’t think so.  Don’t want to follow in Peter’s footsteps.  He was crucified upside down.  That sounds… unpleasant.”  He smiled softly at her.

So much more unpleasant than sarin gas.  “What happened to John?”

“A lot of shit happened to John, too.”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“A little much before breakfast, don’t you think?”

She watched him for a minute and he met her eyes.  He was asking her to stop.  Given the fact he’d just opened up more than she could ever remember, and that he looked more tired now than he had when they’d started this conversation, she could do that.  The abject pain in his eyes was indication enough that his life prior to the CIA was probably equally as dismal as the last few years of his life had been.  “Can I ask you one more question?”

He sighed, resignedly.  “Sure.”

“It’s a really serious question.”

“Ok.”  He was mentally preparing himself, she could see.  Some sort of super personal revelation she was going to ask him about.

“Do you like your hair this long?”

He blew out a laugh.  “No, not really.”

“Would you like me to cut it?”

“Very much.”

“Done.  After breakfast I’ll cut it.”  She went back to the other side of the kitchen, across the island from him again.  “Omelets?”

“Sounds good.”

She refilled his coffee cup and covered his hand with hers.  “Thank you for telling me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to ascloseasthis for her help and hand-holding, and her general awesomeness!


	4. Chapter 4

A voice said, Look me in the stars  
And tell me truly, men of earth,  
If all the soul-and-body scars  
Were not too much to pay for birth. 

– Robert Frost

 

So as it turned out, Carrie sucked at cutting hair.  It may have had something to do with the fact that she thought it would be super easy to do.  You got a scissors and started cutting—how hard could that be?  Make it even, trim a little here and there, and it was done, right?

She had him shower so his hair was wet, sat him down in a chair in the bathroom, grabbed a comb, and a scissors from the kitchen, and got to it.

Thankfully, he wasn’t sitting in front of a mirror watching.  Franny ran in at some point in the middle and looked from her mother to Quinn’s hair a few times.  “What are you doing?”

She thought it was pretty obvious, what with her brandishing the scissors and all.  “I’m giving Quinn a haircut.”

She came around the front and looked at Quinn.  She whispered as though her mother wouldn’t hear her.  “I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”

“Hey!”

He chuckled as her helpful daughter ran out again.

“Just let me try to even it out.  It’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t.  She sighed.  “Maybe kitchen scissors weren’t the best thing to use.”

He looked in the mirror, and she could tell he was trying very hard not to laugh.  He turned his head towards her; it was really bad.  Like butchered-kind of bad haircut.  “So…I wouldn’t quit your day job.”

She pursed her lips, squinting at him.  “It’s not _that_ bad.”

“You are absolute shit at cutting hair.”

“Well, I mean it’s the first time I’ve tried!”

“I don’t think there’ll be a second.”

She huffed.  “And you’re better at cutting hair?”

“Do you have an electric clipper?”

She could have made any number of snide comments, but instead, she just nodded, more to herself.  “I’ll go get one.”

*****

She returned home to find Franny playing hide-and-seek with Quinn.  Quinn was hiding.

“Mommy, Quinn’s not very good at hiding.”

“No?”

“No.  I’ve found him like twenty times already.”

She smiled.  “Maybe you’re just too good at finding people.  Can you find Quinn again so I can finish his haircut?”

Franny nodded and bounded off, delivering him back to the bathroom.

Carrie smiled at Quinn.  “Hear you’ve had a run of back luck in hide-and-seek.”

“Franny’s just the best seeker there is.  Guess hiding’s not my strong suit.”

She took another look at the hack job she’d made of his hair.  “Guess haircutting isn’t mine.”  It was kind of a shame to buzz it all off, but this was _clearly_ not going to go any other way.  She gestured to the clipper.  “I assume you’ve done this before?”

“Yeah, you just pick a length and then basically go against whatever way the hair is growing and keep going until it’s all even.”

“Well even I should be able to handle that.”

It was kind of cathartic actually, running the clippers over his head.  Make a pass, run her fingers over the new shortness to get rid of the stray hair.  She thought he was actually enjoying it—if the fact that his eyes were closed for most of it was any indication.  

Franny seemed fascinated with the process—that half of his head was short and half was still long.

When she was done, it was short.  Like, super short.  Islamabad short.  She wasn’t sure she liked it.  She wasn’t a huge fan of the longer hair he’d been sporting, either, but it was kind of a jarring transformation.  Which was odd given he’d already had some transformations recently.  At the same time, he looked much more like old Quinn, like himself.  It would grow out.  She could figure out how to leave it longer on the top and short on the sides—this clipper shit was way easier than any scissors.

She ran her hand over his head one last time—just to do it; it wasn’t really necessary anymore, the stray cut hair was long gone.

“Can I touch it?”  Franny asked suddenly.  Or maybe it wasn’t so suddenly.  She’d kind of gotten lost there, and he hadn’t moved at all.

Quinn ducked to let her—her tiny hands ran over the top of his head.  “It’s so soft.  It’s fuzzy.”  She giggled.

Quinn smiled.  “What do you think?”

Franny shrugged, considering.  “I don’t know.”  Franny didn’t have anything to compare it to.  This was the only Quinn she remembered.

“Quinn used to have his hair this short,” Carrie offered.

She was still running her hand over his head.  “Mommy, feel this!”

Carrie smiled and well, Franny had asked/told her to.  It was like down.  That part she kind of loved.  It was just pleasant to touch.  “It is very soft.”

She dropped her hand to his shoulder.  “Why don’t you take a look?”

She thought his expression when he saw himself in the mirror was probably similar to what hers had been when she was done.  It was a drastic difference in his appearance.  He ran his hand over the top a few times.

“Well?” she asked.

He nodded.  “Much better than your first attempt.”

“It’s really short,” she said completely obviously.

“It’ll grow out.”

“I think I like it,” Franny announced.

Quinn nodded.  “Me too.  Haven’t seen this guy in a while.”

Carrie smiled.  Franny had no idea what he was talking about, but she thought even him saying it was positive.

*****

She asked him repeatedly to share with her what he saw in his dreams and he would pull away or deflect at that every time.  She didn’t understand why.

And she kept pressing it.

One night he got so mad at her that he shoved her away from him and admitted hoarsely, “I don’t want you to see what I see in my head.  I don’t want those images to live in your head, too.”

It took her longer to figure out what he hadn’t said.   _I don’t want you to see me like that.  To know the extent of what I’ve done._   

Why he thought it mattered she couldn’t fathom—she hadn’t run yet.  She didn’t hold it against him because she’d done plenty herself.

It was somewhere around there that she realized just how deeply everything he’d done had truly affected him.  Sure, she knew over the years that he’d said a fair amount about the shit he’d done.   _Right guy, wrong crime...  I_ was _a bad guy_.  But this was more than that.  This was like a deep-seated, drilled into his core kind of self-loathing.  This was an overpowering hatred of not the things he’d done, or saw, but of himself.  That was different.  This man that she’d always thought was uber-confident had a severely divided sense of self.  She hated that she didn’t realize how vulnerable he was all along, given that she’d spent years with him by her side.  She hadn’t been the most understanding person.  Maybe that was because that would have meant she would have had to analyze her own responsibility in a lot things.  She told herself over and over how the things she’d done were to save lives, to save more lives at the cost of the few—that was the party line, wasn’t it?  Facing the choices she’d made over the years, the people that had gotten in the crossfire, the people that had died, it was easier to compartmentalize.  It was also probably much harder to do that when you were always on the front line, always the one with your finger on the trigger.  She had the luxury of being farther removed most of the time.

She’d been dancing around this subject for weeks—she supposed it was better than how long she’d waited to tell him that she had a part in his stroke.  That showed progress, right?  That she’d been wrestling with how and when to tell him, and it only took her weeks instead of over a year?

They’d just gotten into bed; he was already lying down, but she chose to sit for this, cross-legged next to him.  He didn’t seem to find it particularly odd that she hadn’t lain down immediately.

“I need to tell you something, ok?  And I need you to just listen.  Really listen to me.  Quinn?”

“Yeah?”

“You asked me a question a while ago.”

He bristled immediately.  He knew where this was going.  “Carrie—”

“Just shut the fuck up for a few minutes and let me say this.”

His mouth closed abruptly.

She sighed.  “You asked me a question.  You asked me why—why I saved you.  I need to tell you why I didn’t give you an answer.”

He started to shift, ready to sit up.

She pushed him back down to the bed.  “No.  Listen to me.”

She forced his gaze; forced him to keep hers.

“I’m not good at this.  I’m shit at communicating and for some reason I’m shit at communicating in particular with you.  I don’t even know why.  Maybe because we don’t even normally have to talk.  Or we never had to. Or I didn’t think I had to.  I don’t fucking know.  I just knew that I never really had to say anything to you—you always already knew what I meant and you let me not say it to you.  But that’s not fair.  It’s not fair to you.  And I know there are things I should have said to you a long time ago.

“I literally could not understand how you could even ask why I saved you.  I mean, if you don’t even have any idea of why I would want to save your life, then I fucked this up so royally… I don’t…” she shook her head.  “You have been there for me every step of the way.  When I needed you, when I didn’t need you, when I thought I didn’t need you—you were always there.  And you always pull me back, you know?  And I didn’t take care of you—not like you took care of me for all those years.  I saved you because I care about you.  I saved you because I care about what happens to you.  I saved you because I need you in my life.  I saved you because I didn’t want to lose you.  I saved you because I didn’t want you to die not knowing how much you mean to me.

“I saved you because I let you slip away from me once already because I was fucking stupid and couldn’t give you the answer you deserved.  You told me point blank what you needed that day.  You laid all of your cards on the table.  And it took me too long to realize what a great thing that would have been, and I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t exactly give you a lot of…time.”

“We have really shitty timing, you and I.  Two fucking hours.  I missed you by two fucking hours that day.  And never because I doubted you; I want you to know that.  It wasn’t you I doubted—I just didn’t want to fuck it up.  I just figured out too late that I was completely capable of having something good with you.  I thought I couldn’t have that—thought you deserved better.”

“Why would _I_ deserve better?”

“Because I didn’t want that for you—I didn’t want some fucked up version of my life to ruin yours.  And now look.  None of this would have happened if I’d just given it a chance that day.”

“What did you mean you…missed me by two hours?”

“I was ready to try with you—after I saw my mom.  I told you before I never thought I could have anything good with anyone because of my condition, because my mom left my dad because of the same thing.  Turns out I was wrong.  All the time I spent thinking it was because he was bipolar—turns out she couldn’t stop cheating on him, got fucking pregnant, and decided she had to focus on her new kid.  She hadn’t left because my dad was bipolar.  I thought I’d never be capable of anything real because of that.  I was wrong.

“So I went to find Dar Adal and demanded he tell me where you were but I was too late—you’d already left and were radio silent for two hours.  That started everything, you know?  I told him that I saw him with Haqqani in Islamabad.  I thought that he’d done it himself, and Saul would never be a part of it and he was fucking there, Quinn.  He’d known it all along.  I couldn’t even believe he’d be part of it.  I was wrong about that, too.  So I left.  I left Saul, I left the CIA and I lost you.”

“I thought you’d made up your mind and just didn’t want to tell me.  That you’d decided.”

“You were wrong.”

“I did a lot of really terrible shit, Carrie.  I thought in Berlin you’d just decided to find a better guy.”

“He wasn’t a better guy, Quinn.  And I should have told you more in Berlin.  I don’t have a good reason why I didn’t.  I should have told you then.”

“It probably wouldn’t have mattered.  I wasn’t in a very good place in Berlin.”  He laughed, but it was mostly humorless.  “Wasn’t he a lawyer?”

“Yeah, he was.”

“Then he probably wasn’t that great.  Can’t trust lawyers.”

She laughed.

“Did you love him?”

She sighed, considering his question.  “I think so?  Maybe I just loved the idea of him.  I mean, we were happy.  He was good to Franny.  He had nothing to do with any part of the CIA.  It was nice.  It was different.”

“He’s not responsible for the deaths of more people than he can count?”

And there it was, wasn’t it?  He was still looking at her; she couldn’t really classify the look he was giving her, challenging, maybe?  Like he was daring her to counter that it was different than the truth.  “Quinn, I know you’ve killed people.”

“I can’t even remember all of the people I’ve killed, Carrie.  There’s something…wrong with that.”

“It was your job.  It was what you were ordered to do.”

“Does that make it right?”

“You and I have a fundamental difference in how we look at this.”

“I killed women.  I killed a kid.  I’m responsible for the deaths of innocent people.”

“And I’m not?”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“It bothers me, but I also try to remember that I did it to save lives.  So did you.  You saved more lives than you ever took.”

“There’s nothing I can ever do to fix it.”

“You can’t bring them back, but if you look at all the people that are alive because of who you took out, it outweighs.  The balance is stacked on the good side.”

“What kind of person does it take to do that over and over?”

“Quinn, you’re a good person.”

“I’m not.”

She hated when he did this, but it wasn’t like her saying so would suddenly do something to change his mind.  She changed tactics.  “Do you think I’m a good person?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

“I killed an entire wedding party.  Does that still make me a good person?”

“That doesn’t even come close, Carrie.”

“Answer the question.”

“Yes.”

“So I’m still a good person even though I have a ton of blood on my hands, but you’re not?”

He didn’t respond to that, instead, he said, “Why would you want to save someone who’s never done anything but bring—”

“Because you’re worth saving, Quinn.  And not because you’re _useful_ but because your life is just as important as mine.”

“Do you believe in the idea of a soul?”

“I think so.”

He nodded, mostly to himself.

“Why?”

“Because I think some souls are just born black, ya know?  Like I’ve had this stain all along.  So it didn’t really matter what I did.  It was always going to be like this.  I was always going to be a killer.  I was always going to be…dead inside.”

She just could not with this anymore.  “You are _not_ dead inside.”

He wasn’t looking at her again, shaking his head.  “I don’t think there’s ever been anything there.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

His head turned towards her.

“I know there’s something there.  Even if you don’t.  It’s there every time you look at me.  It’s there when you look at Franny.”

“Maybe this is my punishment.”

Fucking hell, she was going to slap him.  “You are not being punished.”  She wasn’t getting through.  She changed tactics.  “I need you.”

He smiled, but shook his head.  “You don’t.”

“Do you see someone else in my life that will tell me when I’m doing stupid shit?”

“You don’t work for the CIA anymore.”

“That doesn’t make me need you less.”

“You can find another lawyer.”

He was making this impossible.  So she couldn’t take the bait.  He wanted her to get mad at him.  Wanted her to push him away.  To solidify his opinion as unworthy.  She couldn’t do that.  And it wasn’t true.  This was a moral problem for him.  This wasn’t something she was going to solve just by telling him otherwise.  This was what the CIA had done to him, what being a soldier for so long had done to him.  He was just as much collateral damage himself as the collateral damage he took on guilt for.  This was the reality of what war brought home.

She’d done some research early on.  She also knew that keeping every dark secret to himself would eventually mean he’d self-destruct—it’s why she pushed him to tell her every time he woke up screaming or drenched in sweat.  Keeping everything in was not doing him any favors.

She settled on, “I wish you could see what I see, Quinn.  What I know Franny sees.  Kids have this innate sense about people—they can tell instantly if someone is a good person or a bad person.”

“Maybe you see what you want to see.”

“Maybe _you_ see what you want to see.  I see what I know.  You’re selfless.  That’s your problem.”

“Mmm.”

She needed to find a therapist.  Someone who specialized in soldiers returning home and PTSD.  Her research was great, but this was beyond what she was going to be able to do, and what he was capable of doing himself.  They needed way more tools.

“Tell me something you like about yourself.”  He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, amused at her in a ridiculous way, which she ignored.  “I’m serious.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“One thing, Quinn.”  It made her feel sick how long it took him to come up with something.  Like if he would have put up with it, she would have wrapped him up in her arms and cried.

He shrugged.  “I’m pretty resilient it seems.”

“And you like that?  Are proud of that?”

“I guess.”

She wanted to say so many things.  Things in rebuttal that were so much more positive that being resilient.  The fact that he was a survivor was admirable, sure, but it was like that defined him as a person to himself.  Nothing about his capacity to love or accept or his selfless sense to other people or even to a duty itself.  His life was a series of different survivals.  Resilience for other people was probably keeping a positive outlook during bad times—that wasn’t at all what he was talking about.  He kept not dying.  That’s what he was saying.  The sum pieces of his life and psyche was his ability to stay _alive_ , not stay intact.  And he _guessed_ .  He wasn’t even saying that he thought that was a definitively _good_ thing.  She was fucked up herself, sure.  She carried boatloads of shit and left a trail of havoc in her wake sometimes, but she recognized that there were good things about herself, about her personality, and she could say that with certainty.

She felt defeated; defeated herself, defeated for him—she couldn’t imagine living in his skin and feeling this way because it was profoundly fucked up to be on her side of things.  She couldn’t decide if he consciously knew he hated himself that much or if it was just simmering there under the surface all the time.  It was probably both.

He was also watching her while she was letting all of that float around in her head.  She swallowed back the wave of emotion that threatened to boil over, and tried to be as upbeat as one could be when this was the actuality of the situation, and said quietly, “That’s a start.”

She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way, and moved to lie down so he knew they didn’t have to talk about it anymore right now.  He drifted off quicker than normal—maybe some of what she’d said actually sunk in, or some of what he’d admitted lifted some of that burden he carried.  She didn’t really think she cared much what the reason was if it helped.

She couldn’t sleep at all—too many thoughts and so many fucking feelings—she was worried about him enough already; this certainly wouldn’t alleviate any of it.  It was like peeling an onion.  Every fucking layer just made you cry more, more intense.

She gave up on sleep after an hour or so—it wasn’t happening.  So while he slept, she started reading.  It was a pretty dismal picture that was painted and that was just the shit she found: drug abuse and addiction, alcoholism, suicide, guilt that consumed daily life until escape was all that was left.  Men that joined up again and again and again because they didn’t know anything else—that was so fucking Quinn it wasn’t even funny.  Killing a piece of themselves every time they pulled the trigger.

_It’s the sense of violating one’s own basic moral values, of transgressing against what is right, that separates moral injury for garden-variety PTSD.  Today’s standard treatment for veterans suffering from combat-related PTSD involves prolonged cognitive and psychodynamic therapies where subjects either tell or write their stories over and over in an effort to bring context and reason to their experiences…But to treat moral injury, which can and often does co-exist with PTSD, the VA is testing a different approach…a seismic shift in the treatment of war trauma, embracing for the first time the concept that real healing might need to include moral and spiritual notions such as forgiveness and giving back.  The first step involves education; veterans literally learn about the complex psychology of killing in war and the inner conflict it provokes. Then, looking inward, they are trained to identify those feelings in themselves. The third step involves the practice of self-forgiveness. Finally, the veterans are asked to make amends through individual acts of contrition or giving back._

Not that she didn't think that sounded reasonable—it was just going to be another thing to get Quinn anywhere near that.  He'd been holding onto this idea about himself so long, with obviously more than just his active military roles that this was going to address.  The problem was he probably logically understood most of that already.   

So much of the early part of his rehab had been focused solely on the physical aspects of his recovery, which was necessary, but the hospital hadn't been great with the rest.  She figured most of their focus was on what they could fix or alleviate readily and he hadn't been exactly keen on, nor in the mind frame necessary, for actual psychological therapy.  They kind of band-aided large psychological issues, and medicated the rest.  It wasn't a good strategy.  The upside of him not being over-medicated was he was far more alert and functional, but it brought the shit like nightmares and _dealing_ to the surface.  She supposed it was positive that he was at least in this stage and not stagnant in limbo like he had been in the hospital.  From what she read, his response was not uncommon—many soldiers who'd been responsible for less death than Quinn had were just as certain they weren't worthy of love or even life—some from just one situation.  Many sought medication to mitigate the nightmares, but she didn't think he'd want that.  They'd done that in the hospital already.   

She finally closed the laptop and laid back down.  The reading was sort of only making it worse at this point, and kept highlighting the idea that she needed more help than she'd be able to give him alone.    

His sleep hadn't been that restless while she'd been reading, but she noticed a lot of nights when he wasn't particularly restless, he muttered a lot in his sleep.  It was kind of crazy what she knew about his sleeping habits now.   

She wasn't ever sure what was the best protocol if she knew he was having a nightmare.  This one seemed less violent than some, but not necessarily less jarring or horrible.  She didn't want to wake him up and make him more disoriented, but at the same time if she could stop some of the continuous anguish, she wanted to.   

She said his name a few times.  Quiet enough not to jolt him awake, but hopefully enough to pull him back.   

He woke, but at least not with the usual physical shock.  She'd take it.   

“Fuck.”  He started struggling with the blankets, throwing them off of himself.   

She flipped on her side, resting her head on her bent arm.  She touched his shoulder, her usual move, just warm pressure, grounding.  Reality.  His shirt was wet.   

He scrubbed his hand over his face, rubbing the images away, the memory.  

“Tell me what you saw.”   

Either she caught him in a weaker moment than usual, or he was just tired of fighting with her when she asked.  Or maybe she’d finally broken through.  She wasn’t going to question why he was telling her now.  She was too happy he was letting her in.  “I see my first kill a lot.  His face.  His head disappearing in a puddle of mud.  Red mist.”   

“Is that what you saw now?”

“No.”  He jerked, closing his eyes but opening them again quickly.  “S’like flashes of light a lot.  Bang, bang, bang, bodies hit the dirt.  Some faces I recognize, others are just…faceless.”   

She remembered him telling her it was like a drug once.  Another tick mark for the book.  “What was tonight?”

“Something else.”   

She tried to keep her voice devoid of prodding, and asked quietly, “Wanna tell me about it?  Might help.”   

He sighed, and swallowed hard.  His eyes looked heavy, but she knew he wasn’t going to go back to sleep right now.  “Have you ever seen what ISIS does to rebels they catch?”

Of course she knew what they did to people, but he didn’t actually wait for an answer.   

“Blood doesn’t really seep into sand, especially not when it’s a whole body’s-worth.  It kind of pools and congeals and just sits there baking in the sun.  Couldn’t give away your position.  Couldn’t stop it without blowing the mission objective.  So you just let it happen.  Watch it happen.  Not the mission objective, Quinn, so you sit.

“They love to make displays.  They capture Syrian rebels all the time and put them in those orange jumpsuits like prisoners here.  They say some fucking speech about the usual bullshit and then behead them with the smallest knives imaginable.  Do you know how long it takes to cut through an entire neck?  How much blood there is?  It’s like putting your finger in the end of a hose—the arterial spray when they hit the carotid artery—sawing through layers of bone and skin and muscle.  Once they’re heads are detached they put them on the end of spears and leave them as a reminder to people that this is what will happen to you if you rebel or resist.”

She wasn't sure what there was to say to that.  There really wasn't anything that was going to cover the enormity of it.  She didn't want to say something stupid like _I'm sorry you had to see that_.  That was such bullshit to say to someone like him.  She just tried to be honest.  “Quinn, I can't even imagine watching that.  There's no way for me to even understand what that must have been like.  I might not know what to say, but I will listen and be here anytime you want to tell me.”

She wasn't sure he was really listening to her.  She added, “They've never exactly been subtle, have they?”

He didn’t respond to her.  She could tell he was thinking or re-watching or re-living.  She was just quiet and kept her hand on him.   

“You know what bothers me the most sometimes?”

“What?”

“I remember this one.  Vividly.  In Technicolor.  I can still feel the heat.  I can smell the blood.  My lips were cracked from the wind.  It's like I could still be there.  But others...I wish I could tell which were things I actually remember and what's just something that my brain has come up with for me to see.  Sometimes I don't know anymore which ones are real and which ones I just think are real.  Or I could not just remember and they really happened.”

He was opening up to her, which was huge—telling her details, telling her what _bothered_ him.  She wished she had some wisdom to impart to him, something profound to say that would make him feel better or help validate what was true for him, but in this case, she really had nothing.  “Hey, there is really nothing I can say right now to help because I can’t tell you what’s real in this case.  But thank you for telling me.  We’ll figure it out.”

He didn’t seem to need her to say anything.  She was there; that was enough.  “Should I get you a new shirt?  I’m going to get you a new shirt, ok?  This one’s soaked.  I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer, just got up and left the room.

She made it to the basement before she broke down.  Then everything just flooded over her, and she found herself sobbing while rummaging through the drawer for a new T-shirt.  Even his fucking clothes were a reflection of his life—they said literally nothing about him.  They were all very similar and functional and meager because he wasn’t really ever in places long enough to acquire a _wardrobe_.  She caught herself and tried to keep it quiet; it wasn’t really that she didn’t want him to know how much it affected her.  It was more that she wanted to be strong for him right now.  She needed him to know that she could handle all of this.  That she was in it regardless of what he told her and it wouldn’t break her.

She wiped at the evidence still on her face, taking deep breaths to calm herself.  She felt drained.  She splashed some water on her face quickly and ran back up the stairs.  She’d been gone too long already.  She was thankful it was dark enough in her room that he probably couldn’t see that she’d had a meltdown and had been crying.  If he knew it, he blessedly didn’t bring it up.

She helped him out of the damp shirt and into the dry one and aimed for light in her voice, hoping it masked the emotional cracks that she was desperately trying to patch up.  “So first order of business tomorrow?  We’re getting you some more clothes.  And some shirts that are not navy blue or gray in color, just FYI.”

He hummed at her in response, but she didn’t think he was really listening to her.

She was exhausted.  “I think I have to crash, Quinn.  Do you think you can sleep?”

“Yeah, go back to sleep.”

Not what she asked, but she didn’t push it.  She watched him for a few minutes, watched his eyelids flutter closed and then fight to open them again.  She extended her arm and let her hand run over his collarbone, two fingers snaking under his shirt collar and left it there, just a fixed weight.  His head tilted in her direction slightly, but he gave up then and his eyes stayed closed.  She was asleep in minutes.  If he woke again during the night, he hadn’t moved.  She smiled when she woke first in the morning and he was still asleep, her arm still across his chest.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to ascloseasthis for her continued help and her general awesomeness!


	5. Chapter 5

Love at the lips was touch  
As sweet as I could bear;  
And once that seemed too much;  
I lived on air

– Robert Frost

 

 

They were in her bedroom, opposite one another in the matching chairs across from the bed.  Franny had been asleep for hours.  Carrie was reading up on news; Quinn had a book in his lap—he always seemed to have a book.  Tonight’s was _East of Eden_.  He seemed to stick to a lot of classics; she’d never seen him reading anything remotely modern yet.  She didn’t know what she expected really; hadn’t expected anything to be honest because she’d never really thought about what he passed time doing when he wasn’t at work.  It fit he was a reader.  Portable, easy to pull out when you had down time during a mission.

“You’re staring again.”

Busted.  She smiled.  “We should get you a tablet.”

“Why?”

“Well, you can read on it.  Surf the ‘net.  Take up urban street photography.  Whatever.”

“Don’t really need one.”

“You can check out books from the library with them, or buy them.”

“That’s not reading a book.”

“It’s the same thing, Quinn.”

“Can’t smell a tablet.  Can’t turn the page.  Flicking a screen is not reading a book.”

“Might be easier to read though.”

“Don’t care.”

“Who knew you were such a technophobe.”

“I’m not—I love technology.  Just not when it comes to reading a book.  Can’t beat the real thing.”

“It’s not like you couldn’t have both.”

“Mmm.”  He was done listening to her—that was the mark of the conversation being over.

She smiled, and went back to her own mindless searching—the news was unfailingly depressing.  She ordered a few new sets of clothes for Franny, sent a few emails.  She had some soft jazz playing for background noise, considered abandoning her idea, but then finally decided to go for it anyway.  “Can you dance?”

He looked affronted, his head whipping up to look at her.  “Is that a fucking joke?”

“No,” she said seriously.  “I’m not talking a fucking salsa—I just mean, can you dance?  Could you dance before if that’s an easier question?”

He was looking at her like she had six heads, but shrugged, answering, “Yeah, I could dance.”

“Good,” she said, a firm nod in place, and stood, held out her hand.  “I have this idea.”

He looked at her outstretched hand and put his own into it somewhat hesitantly.  “What kind of idea?”

His limp was less pronounced now, but it was still there.  His ankle was weak and the drop foot wasn’t completely gone, but it was lightyears ahead of where he’d started when he’d first woken up to the effects of the stroke and had to relearn everything.  She thought leaving the hospital had probably been the best kind of therapy for him, and being in their environment made recovery mean something different.  Being in a home was different than being tucked away in a military hospital.

“So, I was looking up rehab stuff for your foot—”

He dropped her hand.  “Carrie…”

“Just hear me out,” she said, her tone light but still imploring.  “Humor me for a minute, please?”

He breathed out a heavy sigh.  His eyebrows went up, her indication to continue.

“So there are all of these exercises that I’m assuming you’re not doing because I never see you do them—that’s not to say you couldn’t be doing them when I’m at work, but anyway are you doing them?”  His face remained blank.  She didn’t want this to turn into some kind of misconstrued reprimand session.  “I’m not asking because I’m gonna harp on you to do them.  I’m just asking.”

“No.”

Succinct.  “Did they have you do them when you were in the hospital?”  This was a completely unnecessary question—she’d witnessed him doing half of his rehab, but she was asking it anyway.

“You would know,” he threw back.

Touché.  “Why did you stop?”

“It didn’t get any better after a while.”  He made a motion with his hand.  “Ya know, like, a…cliff-thing.”

“Plateau?”

“Yes.  What’s the point if it’s not getting any better?”

“Can we try this then?”

“I’m not dancing.”

“All you have to do is move your feet.  That’s it.  Just move your feet with me.  It’s not even dancing.”  She was trying for her best look of innocence, but she didn’t think he was buying it.  When she pressed the button on the speaker and the music shifted into something much less jazzy, he started backing away.

“No, just wait.”  She grabbed his right hand and put it on her waist and hooked two fingers of his left into her belt loop to keep them there.  She smiled, happy at her cleverness, and looked up at him.  “You just have to pick up your feet.”

His expression was something akin to annoyance, exasperation, embarrassment, and a fair share of anger.

The song was slow, and she could tell he thought this was completely ridiculous.

“Hey, it’s just you and me, Quinn.  Just move, that’s all.”

She kept her hands on his waist, but they were farther apart than they’d normally be because she needed to see what he was doing with his foot.

“Try to shift your weight onto your other foot—the left one—and then lean into it.”

He was outright scowling at her, but he sighed dramatically and tried it.

It was the weight bearing part—and then getting back to his other leg from it—that was the problem because the drop foot made his toes unable to lift like normal.  It was like a weird limbo where he wasn’t sure which way his body wanted to go, and she could tell it made him feel really unstable.

“I gotcha, just try it again.”

At this point, she couldn’t even hear the music.  And she was sure he couldn’t either.  It was like the most ridiculously fucking slow dancing ever.  She could tell it took a huge amount of concentration on his part; could see it written all over his face.  So she just kept babbling and giving him instructions to try.

“Ok instead of lifting your whole foot, can you try to push off and from your heel so your toes are what you’re using to move the most, then come back down on your toes and rock back to your heel?”  This was so much harder in practice than what she’d read.  “I was reading about this thing called neuroplasticity—it allows your brain basically to rewire itself and the best way to do that is through—”

“Repetition,” he said.  “I know.  I know all of this already.  They told me every fucking day.”

“Well they probably know what they’re talking about, don’t you think?”

His jaw clenched, she wasn’t sure if it was in further irritation at her or if he was just trying really hard to comply with what she was asking him to do.

“Push off from your heel…”

His sighing was kind of hilarious.  But he also wasn’t really complaining, either.

“Rock back…that’s great.”  She smiled up at him, moving closer to him.

He rolled his eyes in response.

Pressed closer, she could feel the tension radiating off of him, and the uncertainty in his movements.

She adjusted her grip on him when he faltered.  “I’m not going to let you fall.”

The back of his shirt was already damp.  This was taking a huge amount of effort on his part.  She’d never seen him more unsure of himself than during this whole process—confidence was something the stroke had robbed from him in a lot of ways.  But it was also like he didn’t really see all the shit he _had_ accomplished, how far he’d actually come.  She supposed it was difficult to see the forest for the trees.

“Can you roll your foot out?”

“No.”

She laughed softly.  “Ok, that’s fine.  You’re doing great.”

“This is the slowest fucking dance ever.”

She smiled up at him.  “It doesn’t matter, Quinn.”

“We’re not even keeping the…beat.”

“Who cares about the beat?  Just keep moving.  It’s good.”

The song switched and while it was super slow, it was nice.  Nice just to be close to him without it being for comfort or mitigating something bad, the movement had a cadence to it regardless of the choppiness.  It was always easy to be with Quinn.  It was something she could remember being there from very early on.

 _And I'll use you as a warning sign_  
_That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind_  
_And I'll use you as focal point_  
_So I don’t lose sight of what I want_  
_And I've moved further than I thought I could_  
_But I miss you more than I thought I would_  
_Oh I'll use you as a warning sign_  
_That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind_  
_And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be_  
_Right in front of me, talk some sense to me_  
_And I'll use you as a makeshift gauge_  
_Of how much to give and how much to take_  
_Oh I'll use you as a warning sign_  
_That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind_  
_And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be_  
_Right in front of me, talk some sense to me_

And all of sudden (or maybe it wasn’t sudden at all) shit got serious.  Because they’d stopped talking enough that she was really listening to the lyrics.  And so was he.  And she could watch him completely unabashedly because they were close enough.

And even when they were pressed this close together, he was surprised when her lips touched his, and the second they did, his balance faltered—she thought there was a metaphor in there somewhere—something about the world tilting, but she knew it had to come from her.  He’d made the move the first time.  It was her turn.

So they stayed that way, circling the same small spot in her room slowly, tentative and barely-there lips pressing together.  His exhale was like he’d been holding his breath for years.  Hell, maybe he had been.

She kept kissing him, and started pulling him slowly with her back to the bed.  He was trusting her to navigate him, she didn’t think he had any clue what direction she was pulling him in.  He followed her without saying anything but she wasn’t saying anything either—it was easier to just do this and not talk about it.  She didn’t know what she’d tell him at this point anyway.

She moved until they were at the bed, and then spun them slowly so his legs hit the side and she prodded him to sit, standing between his legs, her hands on either side of his head while her mouth kept his busy.

She was shocked by how unhurried this was, and honestly by her own gentleness—their first kiss had been a flurry of lust and want and a touch of desperation.  This was nothing like that.  She didn’t want to devour him (well, she _did_ ), but not tonight.  She just wanted him to know how much she cared about him tonight; that her rough exterior really hid someone just a fragile as he was—although she already knew he was aware of that.  She couldn’t really explain why tonight, but she just needed to show him.  They did better with showing each other, words never seemed enough.

His shirt rucked up when she started pushing him to lie back on the bed and she grabbed him to sit up and remove it, chucking it vaguely off the bed behind her.  Then she was pushing him back again, her hands roaming over his stomach, his chest, whatever she could reach.  He’d lost weight the last year, gained some of it back but he was still too thin.  Her fingers grazed over the traces of Gettysburg, over scars she didn’t know the origins of—Syria, Iraq, other godforsaken sandpits and who knew where else the roadmap led on his skin.  Her right landed on Berlin, and stayed there, where so much had gone wrong, covering that remnant of the wound like she could cover up or erase the last few years.  Her other hand cupped his face and she started trailing her mouth over the same path her fingers had taken, laving attention over scar tissue and salty skin.

“Carrie…” his voice was shot, completely wrecked, pupils blown wide.   

“Will you just let me?”

“I don’t…”

“Please?  Just let me, Quinn.”

“Let you what?”

“I want to do this for you—I want to make you feel good.”  He was watching her, reading her eyes, but she wasn’t being anything but truthful.  “Can I take these off?”   She ran her fingers under the waistband of the pajama bottoms he had on, his stomach muscles contracting with her touch.

He nodded slowly.  She made short work of them, all the permission she needed, tossing them in the same direction as his shirt.  It wasn’t like he wasn’t interested.  With the pants gone, he was already hard and leaking precome all over, his cock resting against his stomach.  She took him in her hand and his head dropped back to the bed, eyes closing while she stroked him slowly.  His head came up again at the first feeling of her mouth on him, taking him in completely unhurriedly, letting her saliva coat his cock as he went deeper.  She could tell he didn’t know whether to push up or pull away, but she pulled back gently, hollowing her cheeks until only the tip remained.  She focused on the head then, holding him steady while sucking the crown and tonguing along his slit, lapping at the precome that kept spilling out.

He’d been pretty quiet, but when she dipped back down, cupping his balls and rolling them while he hit the back of her throat; he basically turned into a groaning mess on the bed.  He alternated between panting and throwing his arm over his eyes to watching her bob her head on his cock.

“Fuck, Carrie.”

She pulled off with an audible pop, licking her lips and smiling as his head came up again, their eyes meeting.  The smile turned to something much more mischievous.  “That’s the idea.  You want a pillow?”

He shook his head, sluggish, and she figured even if he wanted one to watch everything easier, he wouldn’t want her to stop for something as trivial as a fucking pillow.   

She wondered how many times he’d thought about this.  How many times had she?  She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about this with him—but most of her fantasies skipped this part and jumped right to sex.  She was supremely glad they didn’t—fascinated with the way his thigh muscles contracted and trembled like he was either super close or was barely keeping it together.  It was probably a bit of both.  She felt greedy.  She’d always been kind of greedy with him.  With a lot of people.  But this felt fundamentally different—it was like backwards greed.  She wanted it _for_ him, not from him.  He wasn’t the type to be greedy for himself.

Her intent was to take the edge off, make him come hard and fast, so she wasn’t trying to make it last for him.  That was the next part of her plan.

She made sure he was watching her and licked around the tip before taking all of him in again, swift and intense until there wasn’t anywhere else to go.  Then she swallowed.  And he fucking lost it—his hips pushing up as his cock started to pulse out his release.  She backed off and swallowed it all, keeping him in her mouth until there was nothing left to take in.

His breathing was shot, all staccato and clipped, the skin on his chest and going up his neck all flushed.  “Jesus…Fuck.”  His head dropped back to the bed.

She stood, stretching her muscles from the weird angle she’d been in, her hands on his thighs.  “Your vocabulary is severely reduced with a blowjob.  In case you didn’t know.”

“I…”

She crawled up the bed, flopped on her side and watched his breathing slow, her fingers darting out to trace over his collarbone.

“What?” she asked quietly, prompting him when he didn’t continue.

His head turned towards her.  “What is this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you why.”

“I don’t want this to be because of this,” he gestured down to his body, to his left side.

“It’s not because of that.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“Did I say anything about pity?” It came out harsher than she meant it to.  “Why would you think this is pity?”

The look he gave her was somewhere between disbelief and annoyance.  “I don’t want it because of guilt either.”

She sighed, thinking, but decided not to overthink and just tell him, “Do I feel guilty because this happened to you?  Yes.  Do I feel responsible?  Yes.  Does that mean I love you less or differently?  No.  I loved you before all of this.”

She kind of wished she could have taken a picture of his face.

“I just never said it.  It hasn’t changed, Quinn.  I think I hesitated because I wasn’t sure after everything if you still felt the same.  I should have said it so many times before.”

She could tell he was thinking, or trying to formulate a response, or trying to make his brain re-engage because she’d just broken it.  Or he didn’t know what to say.  Or, the possibility she hadn’t even considered, was that he actually didn’t feel that way anymore.  Fuck.  She’d gone on the predication that he did—if she’d misread this, this was going to be supremely fuck things up.  “You don’t have to say anything, Quinn.  I just—”

“It hasn’t changed for me, Carrie.”

Well thank fuck for that.  She smiled and nodded.  “Good.  I’m glad.”  

She realized two things: one, she was still completely clothed and he was naked—she needed to remedy that; and two, she had other things she still wanted to do to him.   

She leaned closer, catching his mouth, letting her tongue lap at his, knowing full well he could taste himself there.  She backed off long enough to discard her clothes.  He watched with a lazy smile on his face and had she not been preoccupied, she would have taken them off much slower.   

“Why don’t you move back on the bed or your legs are going to be hanging off for this.”   

It took him a second, but he started scrambling backwards towards the pillow.  She _was_ giving him a lot of stimulus to deal with here—she’d literally just gotten naked so she supposed simple commands were going to take him a beat or two.  It was actually kind of hilariously cute.  Either that or he was having trouble deciding if this was actually happening or not.   

She came back on the bed, straddling his body, sitting herself right in front of where his cock was resting, hard again on his stomach.  She was so wet already; her thighs were covered in it.  There was no way he couldn’t feel it.   

His eyes had taken on sort of a glazed look—he was probably in a state of shock or something—she was sure this had not been how he imagined his night going.  It wasn’t like he was unhappy; his hand kept flexing on her hip, his eyes roving from her face, down her body and back up again.   

She moved up enough to grab his cock, hold him steady.  She ran the tip through her wetness a few times before lining him up.  She sank down on him at the slowest pace imaginable; watching his face ripple with so much pleasure and desire as he stretched her, it was incredible to watch.  His breathing was already halfway to fucked and she hadn’t even started moving yet.  She stopped to just let herself adjust, hands splayed over his chest, and when she was about to move, he tightened his grip on her hip.   

She looked up at him in question.  “You ok?”

He nodded shakily.  “You just n-need to stay still for a minute.”   

She settled into him, letting her body fall forward to rest on her elbows instead, the fullness of him inside her felt so fucking good.  “I can do that.”

Not that she wanted to compare or be thinking about other people, but…she was never this present during sex, ever.  So much of her young adult life had been spent in the heat of the moment or in some manic state where fucking was just a means to an end, an adrenaline-filled need just to escape from herself.  She would have been halfway to orgasm right now instead of waiting for him.  It hadn’t really been that different in the past few years, either.  For some reason, Quinn made it different.   

“You ok?”

He nodded again, less shaky.  “Yeah.”   

She dipped to kiss him quickly, chuckling at his groan when she clamped on him.  “You ready?”

He swallowed noticeably and nodded only, maybe not trusting his voice.  She didn’t feel the need to make him say it.  So she started to move, a slow pace that brought him almost all the way out of her before she’d drop back onto him.   

Things to catalog: his neck—uber-sensitive, which she wouldn’t have necessarily thought it would be, but now that she knew she was determined to leave several marks there just because she could.  She loved the idea that she knew something about him that in all actuality probably no one else did.  Nipping at his ear–full body shudder.  His hair–too fucking short for her to grab or hold onto no matter how downy and soft it was under her fingers.   

She couldn’t decide if it was wrong or not that she had the compulsion to see Quinn lose control.  Not in the violent sense, but just…on a personal level.  He spent his entire life controlled.  Even when he’d gone after Haqqani by himself, it was as methodical as anything else he’d done.  She wanted this one to be slow, to last, to relish—but other times she wanted him uninhibited, wild, wanton—but for different reasons that she just wanted to share it with him.   

She experimented with directions, how he felt inside when she moved back and forth, or bent over him more, how he shifted and hit different spots when she changed to circle her hips.  It was one of the perks of this position—how she could control how far he went, where, how she could grind herself into his cock.  The sounds he made were amazing—grunted and panted moans that made her shiver.  She was fascinated with where his hand would land—anchored to her hip or trailed up her back, the pads rough with callouses from weaponry and who knew what else.  It was like a heightened sensation to feel them run over her skin, so much smoother than his.  She nearly came when his hand made its way to her breasts, pushing herself forward into his touch as he kneaded and rolled her nipple.   

“Fuck, Quinn.”  She wanted to be closer, to feel more of him, rolling forward until her arms framed his head, hands fisting in the sheets.  She thought he would agree—it was like sensory overload.  Everything sounded louder; the wet sounds of her pushing back onto him, their breathing heavy and mixed with moans as his knees shifted up to help with the thrusting as she moved faster.   

His body was so tense, she knew he was close, and she was shifted so high, her clit was grinding into him—it wasn’t going to take her long anymore either.  And as much as everything was loud and taut and staggering, the feeling of that hand on her back was almost the most grounding—it was a solid weight.  Reliable and present just like he was.   

All she wanted to do was pull him closer.  She didn’t know if it was a safety thing or just the insatiable need to have him or something else—but she’d never craved intimacy like this.  She pressed a quick kiss to his mouth before he was coming, and then just watched—his neck corded and his chest damp—she could feel his cock throbbing out his release.  She was supremely glad she got to see it, watch the tension break and his hips slam up into her.  She followed right after, clenching her thighs around him as the orgasm prickled through her body and warmth spread everywhere.   

She dropped to his chest, their bodies flush, his hand still a welcome weight on her back while she could feel the aftershocks traveling through his body.  She didn’t know how long they stayed liked that, but it felt like a while—she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t dozed off.  When she pulled back, he looked happily sluggish, kinda stoned, a lazy smile on his face.   

She kissed him one last time before easing herself off of him, rolling onto her back and landing on the bed with a sigh somewhere between sated and tired—the kind that came from a great release.  She could feel the evidence of his leaking out of her.  “Fuck.  We should have done that a long time ago.”

He laughed.  Really laughed.  Smiling and everything.  The same kind of real smile when she had him read Franny’s book—the kind that truly reached his eyes.  “We should have.”

“What do you think it would have been like?  Then, I mean?”

“Angrier?” he said, half-laughing.   

She laughed back.  “Probably.”   

“I think I infuriated you a lot.”

She scoffed.  “And I didn’t infuriate you?”

He considered it for a second.  “No, you definitely did.”   

“And now?”

“You’re still infuriating.  And annoying.  And persistent.”

“Gee, thanks.  That’s very encouraging.”  She couldn’t really describe the amount of affection that he had in his voice saying that.  Or the amount she had saying back, “The feeling is mutual and really, I’ll deny this if you ever bring it up again, but I probably was pissed because you were usually right.”   

His eyebrows shot up.  “I’m sorry.  Can you repeat that?”

“No.  I said I’d deny it.  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”   

She rolled back into him, lying half on/half off, leg thrown between his, sprawled over his chest, her fingers starting to make nonsensical patterns.  She liked that his hand immediately returned to her back now, that same warm consistency.  This new intimacy that made him feel comfortable doing it.

“What’s this one?”  She traced over a scar, long and jagged and the mark of mangled skin.  It started on the front of his shoulder and ran to the back.   

“Patrol didn’t do so well sweeping for IEDs before we went in on a capture mission.  It was dark.  Shrapnel blast wave was pretty far-reaching.  I was lucky.”

She didn’t think it looked so lucky.  “Syria?”

“Yep.”

“It looks painful.”

“It was.”  He chuckled humorlessly.  “Pretty sure I had a concussion.  Ruptured eardrum, ringing for days.”   

“Why did you stay so long?”  She kind of wanted to tell herself to shut up—she didn’t want to ruin their afterglow.   

He sighed, running his hand up and down on her bare back.  Hers was unmarked, free from scars—she wore hers on the inside instead.  Not that he didn’t have his own inside, too.  “I dunno, Carrie.  I didn’t think there was anything left for me.  It was mindless.”   

“What about this one?”

“Berlin.”

Her brow furrowed.  “When?  You didn’t have this in the warehouse.”

“Courtesy of the leader of the…jihadists.”   

“Do you remember a lot about that?”

“Not really.  It gets pretty fuzzy after I went with them.  I think I remember things sometimes, but I can’t be sure.  Even before that.  A lot is pretty…like pieces.  Or more feelings.”

“Like what?”

“Like I remember the feeling of duct tape being ripped off of my mouth or the way the truck I was in bounced over roads.  Weird shit like that.  Nothing…concrete.  Doesn’t feel real.”   

“Does this?”

His gaze was super intense when it met hers.  “Real or not real?”

He was a crafty motherfucker.  She told him that she’d tell him what was real and what wasn’t.  It was like a last-ditch effort to bail if she wanted.  “Real,” she said quickly.   

He nodded.  “Yeah, it feels real.”  

“Good or else I was going to have to try to convince you again.  Man, that would have been a chore. I probably would have had to start over or something.  Try it all again.”   

“Um...I think I'm having trouble with reality.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely.  It's all pretty hazy.  I have problems with short term memory, you know.”  

“Well we better remind you then.”

“Yeah, I definitely don't remember this started with a blowjob.”

She laughed.  “What else don't you remember?”

“Mmm...the rest is all pretty much a blur.  Don't even remember having sex.  I definitely think we might need to try again.  Maybe it'll stick with me then.”

“So, I'm just going to tell you, because it's going to be a thing—your neck is full of hickeys.  Like Franny's going to wonder what the fuck happened to you tomorrow.  And I'm not sorry.  You might have to start wearing turtlenecks.”

“Seems like a pretty good problem to have.  Better than a lot of other ones that I already have.”   

“I'm just letting you know you're going to have to explain that to people.”  

“I'm pretty highly trained.  I'll come up with something.  Might have been a really nasty bug that only seems to attack me.  And only at night.  And only when—”

She stopped him with a kiss, moving over him again.  “And only when what?”

“I don't even know what we were talking about.  Memory's going again.  I think you better fix it quick.”

“I can do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to ascloseasthis for her continued help and her general awesomeness!


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